Barramundi

The Background

In 1997 Barrow Borough Council asked The Ashton Group to produce a community play for Barrow. What eventually became Barramundi took 3 years of community development and fundraising. Instead of one big show we decided it might be better to make a number of smaller shows so that lots of people could be involved at all kinds of different levels, and that there should be lots of writers involved to give a wide range of voices. On this principal we put together a mixture of writers from Barrow itself and from outside the town. So alongside Barrow’s Sarah Miller, Kate Davies, Phil Gregg and John Hall are Julia Darling from Newcastle and Kevin Fegan from Manchester. Added to this mix, some of the performers devised their own material, young people from Ormsgill and Barrow Island and the members of Barrow Deaf Drama Group.

Some of the Barramundi stories were based loosely on real events, some were entirely fictional but set in real places around the town. They were imagined happenings, stories spun out, gossip and tall tales such as you might hear told in any playground, bar, supermarket checkout or doctors waiting room across the town.

The nine plays that made up Barramundi were performed over three nights at The Forum in Barrow in November 2000.