Living History - Dead but not Forgotten! (Heritage Open Days at the Hull Minster)
After the success of our Living History project in 2023 for the Hull Minster, we were commissioned to provide the live interpretation for the Heritage Open Days in 2025 and 2026.
We were challenged by a new brief that required more dialogue between the characters and so we created a short twenty minute piece of theatre, performed to a seated audience. The key criteria in the brief was, as in 2023, to increase awareness and tell the stories of the memorials and ledger stones inside the Minster.
We developed a set of learning outcomes, key messages and wrote the scripts. that brought our main characters from different time periods into conversation with each other! Dr John Alderson, the eminent eighteenth century doctor, and Agnes Bedford, the medieval noble woman returned along with two new characters: the 17th century Merchant Adventurer, George Crowle and his wife Eleanor Crowle, the charity worker and philanthropist.
The short piece of theatre explored each of their stories with interactions across the time zones between the characters.
James Cameron - Heritage Project manager:
“Working with Shift Key Theatre was a blast, and they really make an effort to make you feel involved throughout the creative process. Their delivery on the day was superb, and we were asked countless times after their performance about when the actors would come back! Superb work from a passionate team.”
Photos by: merciegraphy (2025) and Becky Howes (2026)