Sotirios said:

Barons Court Theatre works with underrepresented communities and groups including neurodivergent actors and directors. Their theatre space is essentially a basement under a pub however, so that restricts what they can do.”

Students were asked to come up with layout ideas on how to improve the space, in support of grant applications the Theatre is looking to submit. These were on display as part of the show.

Also on display was the work that MA Interior Environment Design students, the first cohort of the new course, had undertaken while researching the district of Clerkenwell.

Course Leader Doina Carter explained:

In collaboration with a local architecture practice, each student developed their own project looking at a different aspect,”

The students’ work revolved around aspects of the area, from the origins of its name to the crafts and trades that once defined it, such as watch makers. They also explored the folklore associated with the neighbourhood, such as wife selling to end unsatisfactory marriages in Smithfield's market, the pub where Stalin and Lenin are believed to have first met or Clerkenwell Green, which was novelist Charles Dicken’s Fagin and the artful dodger’s 'classroom' for fresh delinquents.

Other projects included site analysis findings, such as the existence of a historic underground river – called the New River - which was directed to Clerkenwell in the 17th century to bring water to the neighbourhood.

Doina added:

The students’ interest in the coherent urban fabric, perceived as monotonous, revealed that this is the physical expression of a monoculture, now surprisingly dominated by solicitors rather than creatives. Of interest to our collaborators was how the students' projects made visible some of the lost histories of Clerkenwell, bringing it to life for a diverse group of people."