Fun Palaces Festival 2016

Inspired by the innovation of pioneering playwright and director Joan Littlewood, Fun Palaces Theatre Festival celebrates the overlap between science and drama with a weekend of free, creative performances. All around the country, venues from parks and shopping centres to swimming pools and libraries will be transformed into palaces of fun in a free celebration of culture and learning- and there's a good few cropping up in London.

The lowdown: The inaugural Fun Palaces Festival in 2014 was established by theatre makers Stella Duffy and Sarah-Jane Rawlings to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the war and to celebrate what would have been Littlewood's 100th birthday. And the 2016 festival is set to be bigger and bolder than before.

This festival is more than just events: it's a movement, one which invites anyone, anywhere, whether a library, community centre, theatre or garden shed, to create a Fun Palace, with their own local residents at the core as both audience and participants.

And since this initial seed was sown, the invitation has been taken up in locations ranging from Cornwall to Glasgow, in theatres, historic homes, community centres and more. In London, there are sweet makeshift events in libraries and lidos - build a batbox and meet batman at Brockwell Lido or go to Storycycle at Crystal Palace.

The background: The central tenets of a Fun Palace are that it's a ‘laboratory of fun’, a ‘university of the streets’, where anyone and everyone can learn something, and participate in an arts culture that is too often elitist and closed in its creation and reach. So all events at Fun Palaces are free, most welcome all age groups (check with local listings) and bring together artists and practitioners from widely various disciplines.

Having started out to fuse of arts and sciences and continue Joan Littlewood's vision for greater public participation in both, Fun Palaces has exploded into a nationwide movement.

Click here to find your nearest Fun Palace

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