Paper Cinema | New Theatre In Your Neighbourhood

As part of the New Theatre in your Neighbourhood project Fuel have been inviting artists to undertake missions to each of the places that we are working in. As part of their mission they will be contributing to the blog. We are delighted to present this audio postcard from Paper Cinema. You can find out more about the New Theatre in your Neighbourhood project a http://www.fueltheatre.com/projects/new-theatre-in-your-neighbourhood

Audio postcard from Paper Cinema in Poole – best listened to with headphones.

Poole is a thriving town surrounded by parkland and industrial sites. There are parts of Poole that you won’t hear much but the chatter of sea birds and water gently lapping against moored boats. All sorts of transportation connect through the town, we heard buses, trains, pleasure boats and ferries underscoring the ever present seagulls.

In the harbour the sounds are of industry – cranes load boats with sand and gravel, we hear boat builders and the sound of the wind making the masts clink and moorings creak. Listen closely at 1min10 for high pitched whistles recorded underneath ‘Sea Music’ a large metal sculpture designed by Sir Anthony Caro, that interacts with the wind to produce sounds.

There’s also the familiar sounds of urban england as locals and visitors shuffle around the shopping centre, buskers strum on the high street and children play in the parks that are also home to geese and swans.

Huge thanks to Little Boat / Chris Reed.

As part of the New Theatre in your Neighbourhood project Fuel have been inviting artists to undertake missions to each of the places that we are working in. As part of their mission they will be contributing to the blog. We are delighted to present the first mission blog post from Paper Cinema. You can find out more about the New Theatre in your Neighbourhood project at http://www.fueltheatre.com/projects/new-theatre-in-your-neighbourhood

Poole by Paper Cinema

Poole is a beautiful place, it smells of holes bay, lush cosmetics,
fish, fibre glass, marine diesel and the freshness of the sea.

It’s hard to talk of Poole without talk of the harbour, that gives the
towns it’s being. Once in New Zealand, I handed over my passport
to the bureau de change clark ‘are you from poole !’ he exclaimed
then proceeded to tell me how wonderful my home town is for sailing,
it would seem to have friends all over the place.

It is the ‘second biggest harbour in the world’ locals will tell you while
quietly adding the suffix ( after sydney ) with 100 miles of raggedy
shoreline, inlets, islands, sandbars and deep water channels, it hides
boatyards, moorings mariners, Britain’s largest onshore oil field, caravan parks,
camping scouts, the nocturnal movements of the SBS, and swimming
deer – all held in by the long arm of sandbanks, a natural sand spit
now crammed full of million pound houses, supposed to be one
the most expensive pieces of real estate. In contrast to Poole itself
which has always been in bit run down, lived in, it is a working town.

It clanks to the sound of goods moving and clinks to the sound of yachts
on the swell – pigeons fight with seagulls for chips at the bus station
at the top end of town where 1970’s concrete rules, merging into the
Arndale shopping centre, multi story car parks and moment valley
outcrop that is the barclays building, from here the high street starts it’s
straight walk down to the quay. But almost as it begins, it is dissected by the
train track, stopping the new from the old, crossing barriers come down
cutting shoppers from their bustle to let diesel engines hammer through town,
some people stop to watch the people filled carriages or trucks of materials, others
take to the footbridge to get the patchwork of Poole, small shops, warehouses,
boat yards, public houses, churches, resident houses – a old town build around
centuries of traffic of trade – to and from the quayside, a muddle of commercial
buildings and access roads set to regulate, store, fix and ply this fare.

Articulated trucks drive in to met the cross-channel ferries at the docks, where gravel
and sand is off-loaded as sun-seeker boats are built next door, these icebergs of bling
dot the quay and sit across the old town, a visual reminder of Poole’s new industries –
they mix with the RNLI, Animal, LUSH HQ’s.

Poole pottery, the fisherman’s harbour and grain silo have been moved aside for
luxury flats and yachting mariner, maybe a little bit of sandbanks, another bit of bling
sits by the old town’s day to day, craft from all round the world, naval boats, squire riggers,
dredgers, pleasure boats, cargo ships – Poole is built by the sea and lives by the sea –
it’s people know that and celebrates it, they like to dress as pirates
– but then who doesn’t…