ALBION

an exploration of modern Englishness, in all its complexity.

Welcome to Albion. A world with a legendary past, fallen present and hope-filled future.

Albion began in 2022 with The Great Middlemarch Mystery and will finish in 2026 with Our Public House.

Join us as we journey across landscape and language, digging deep into folk and written histories, oral traditions, music, storytelling, theatre and performance. Working closely with participants, audiences and artists throughout the country, we have embarked on a process of interrogation into how England presents itself today, its colonial legacy and what remains unheard.

Our Public House

We began our research for Our Public House in 2023 with our partners, Birmingham University and University of East Anglia. Our research started with us hosting with a series of workshops for persuasive speaking for diverse communities in England. This led to our Speak Out! events, a mini-festival of conversations, actions and performance in November 2023 and our podcast series.

Our research is leading us to create Our Public House, a state-of-the-nation theatre production, inspired by the speeches and writing of our national participants, from director Josephine Burton and writer Barney Norris.

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The Great Middlemarch Mystery

Our 2022 production invited you to step into the reimagined world of one of the greatest English novels ever written, on the streets of Coventry.

Part-immersive theatre experience and part-mystery game, The Great Middlemarch Mystery puts a modern twist on George Eliot's Middlemarch and its story of the hopes, dreams, disappointments and scandals lived out within a Midlands town.

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PODCAST

Podcast

“Grasp the subject, the words will follow.” Attributed to Cato The Elder

“Take a deep breath in, now think about the future you want” Heidi in Cornwall.

What do you want to change? What do you want politicians to understand?

Our Public House: The Country at a Crossroads

Join us on the road as we travel the length and breadth of England to hear what people want to change. In communities across Cornwall, Yorkshire, Norfolk, the North West, South East and the Midlands, we’re supporting people to write and deliver speeches on what difference they want to see.

Welcome to Albion. A world with a legendary past, fallen present and hope-filled future. Our Artistic Director Josephine Burton and Podcast Producer Rachael Head discover the myths of Albion and what it means to be English today.

In the third and final episode of Making Middlemarch, the cast and crew reflect on their experience of The Great Middlemarch Mystery.

The second episode of Making Middlemarch brings you conversations straight from the rehearsal room.

Discover how the idea of The Great Middlemarch Mystery was conceived and why the source text’s author, George Eliot, continues to enchant us today.