A farewell from Simon

I've had the pleasure of working for Hoipolloi for nearly eight years and was thrilled when I stepped up to become the company's Executive Producer in 2011. But now it's time for me to undertake some brand new adventures and I'll be leaving Hoipolloi on 21 December.

I started as the company's first full-time Marketing & Touring Manager in January 2005 and one of my first tasks was to book a tour for Floating, the first Hugh Hughes show. Little did I (or indeed anyone else!) know that we'd go on to take Hugh and his friends all across the world, win four awards and help share his work beyond the stage online, on radio and on film.

Following Hoipolloi's successful application to join the Arts Council's national funding portfolio in April 2012, the company has been able to expand its staffing resources and I know that I'll be leaving things in very capable hands. I also wanted to make sure that Stories from an Invisible Town was happily on its feet before I left (which it is) - please don't forget that you can still catch the piece in Plymouth until Saturday and from next week at London's Barbican Centre (oh, and of course, online whenever you wish at www.invisibletownstories.co.uk).

There are also lots of exciting things on the horizon! A new Hugh Hughes radio drama will be broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on 5 December, there is plenty more online activity to come and also an announcement of a fantastic new live show will be made in the New Year. I'm certainly very sad not to be able to play a part in that and when you hear about it, I'm sure you'll understand why!

And what about my own plans? Well, I've decided to follow Hugh's advice and think carefully about how I can "change my perspective". In January I'll be heading off to Australia for a little while to discover more about their cultural scene - I'm intending to hop from festival to festival and then after that, we'll see what happens.

Our audiences (and their delight in our work) has been a huge part of why I've enjoyed working with Hoipolloi so much and I'll greatly miss thinking about what intriguing offerings can be created for you. Thank you for continuing to support Hoipolloi and Hugh Hughes and making my time here so wonderful. 

Simon Bedford, Hoipolloi's Executive Producer

Following the audience's lead

One of the constant challenges for arts organisations, especially those that tour work like Hoipolloi do, is building a relationship with an audience that can be sustained - even when work is not out 'on the road'. Talking about 'the audience' all too often means thinking about the people who experience your work as a homogenous unit, when they are anything but.

Hoipolloi has been fortunate that Hugh Hughes, who we've been working with since 2005, so readily embraces social media. This enables some degree of a continued conversation, but we also know that twitter and facebook are not everybody's cup of tea. We've also been open to exploring opportunities beyond the stage, and the recent success of Floating on Radio 4, that that earned Hugh a BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Scripted Comedy Drama, also brought us a huge audience.

We were really excited about opening up Hugh's childhood home online, because we knew this offer was a unique way to experience the magic of Hugh Hughes when and where the audience please. We know, however, that not all Hugh's fans want to experience work in this way, and even those that do have radically different approaches to the site. Some people start on the home page and work methodically through the stories as though they are actually walking through the house; some people jump straight into a story through a link they found on twitter or facebook; some people wander around the online space looking at the floorplans and Hugh's notes without listening to stories at all; some people put stories on 'in the background' whilst they do other things. With the glorious variety of Hoipolloi's audience in mind, we've continued to work with the material that we've made available online at www.invisibletownstories.co.uk in an attempt to make the experience of visiting as unique as each visitor. We've started to offer particular collections of stories, curated by people. My own collection is simply my favourites at a particular point in time that capture something of the whimsy and perspective that I think makes Hugh so compelling. Each collection has a description that will tickle particular fancies - want a flavour of the site without having to make decisions about which story to choose? We've got a single track, curated by Hugh. Or maybe you're fascinated by Hugh's love of pigeons?

Most exciting of all, perhaps, is that we listened to feedback, and have created Hugh Hughes FM. We're delighted to announce this development, which will suit both those who want to listen whilst doing other things, and those who are open to serendipity and want to be surprised. Find it at http://invisibletownstories.co.uk/radio

Where are they now?

If you're a regular reader of this blog, particularly anyone who has been a visitor here since we launched this space all the way back in the 2007, you'll know that over that period, we've offered internships to four talented individuals at the start of their arts careers.

We're really proud of what Sara, David, Marieke and Richard achieved during their time with us and I thought this might be an opportune moment to share with you what they are up to now!

Sara

This blogpost flashed into my mind when onto my Twitter stream popped the following video, with a very recognisable face staring back. After Sara left Hoipolloi she studied acting at Central School of Speech and Drama and is now working with friends to create these little vignette's once a month...


 There's more information on Mono Pops and what they're up to right here

David

When David left Hoipolloi he headed off for two years at the Lecoq School in Paris (following in Shon and Steffi's footsteps). When he graduated last year, he started up his own company called Let Slip and can now be found up at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a show called Machines for Living

Machines for Living is now running at the Zoo until 27 August at 3.30pm. More info here.

Marieke

Marieke's path away from Hoipolloi lead her to Birkbeck's Theatre Directing course, which she'll be finishing in September. As part of the course, she spent eight months working with the lovely folks up at Sheffield Theatres (assisting Daniel Evans, Richard Wilson and Lyndsey Turner) and has recently produced and directed a production of Terrance Rattigan's While the Sun Shines.

Richard

Our most recent intern Richard left us back in 2011 to return to Hull and the Merge Arts Festival that he co-founded and runs. This year he'll also be found at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe working with Awkward Cough and their show The Election: A Silent Comedy, running now at the Bedlam Theatre until 18 August at 6.30pm. More info here.

Oh, and while we're talking about shows to see at the Fringe, you might also be interested that Shon and Steffi's daughter (and Hoipolloi's finest Edinburgh flyerer) Josie also has a show at the festival this year. You can see her in Spaghetti Junction at the Bedlam Theatre from 13 to 18 August (at 12.30pm). More info here.

(by the way, that's Sara dressed as the Doubtful Guest for a photo shoot back in 2008!)

Sharing and learning

As creatives, we're familiar with the idea of uncertainty: we readily embark on journeys when the destination is unclear, and trust that we'll not only find our way, but that we'll discover something along the way that we couldn't have planned or predicted. But when we put something into the public domain, we sometimes seem less able to embrace risk.

The last week at Hoipolloi has been full of uncertainty: we took the decision to share the online world for Stories from an Invisible Town, invisibletownstories.co.uk, knowing that it isn't finished, knowing there are things we would change.

When I applied for the Digital Associate post with Hoipolloi, what really piqued my interest was the description of the environment surrounding the website as 'test and learn'. I've had so many experiences with arts organisations that look to digital as the answer to questions that are too narrow, or outcomes that are too fixed. In pursuing answers and delivering outcomes, it's hard to allow room for understanding to emerge, for the form and the content to grow into one another.

At Hoipolloi, we've been encouraged to be open about both our progress and our process by a strong team who understand the value of input from users and audiences. We've employed an agile system of development that focuses on the minimum functionality required to test an idea, and then builds this up in an iterative fashion - which means that decisions don't have to be made before you know what you are making.

It's true to say that you never really know what you've made until you get it in front of an audience. This early sharing of the online world makes a lot of sense at Hoipolloi - after all, we're not making the site for us, we're making it for you and that means that the next set of decisions we make will be based on having shared the site and having learnt about what it is through observing how it is used.

So I hope you'll join in by visiting the site - invisibletownstories.co.uk - and allowing us to share your experience.

Image: a dry run in preparation for data analysis for invisibletownstories.co.uk

A big hello from the two new faces at Hoipolloi!

The once quiet Hoipolloi office has been somewhat busy of late as Bianca and I joined the team last month. We’ve had a lovely time meeting the rest of the team and bonding with the office yak and the Doubtful Guest. Having joined Hoipolloi from the exotic locations of Nottingham and Toronto, respectively, we have been exploring our new stomping ground here in Cambridge and getting acquainted with the Mill Road Massive. As the new company Administrator, I have spent the last few weeks investigating the deepest darkest depths of the office filing cabinets and Bianca is currently developing a dynamic new online space where Hugh Hughes can share his family’s memories. But more exciting than all of that, we have spent much of our time focusing on the important task of convincing Simon to let us get an office dog. Watch this space people; we think we are winning. Woof Woof! 

The gorgeous pictured dog, Tisbe, is courtesy of Olof Werngren from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.