Greater Manchester Creative Industries Exchange

Our Guest Curator Julie Hesmondhalgh gave a stand-out keynote speech, summing up many of the themes explored throughout the day, and highlighting the need to ‘See It to Be It’.  She was then joined in conversation by our CEO Martina Murphy to discuss the Coliseum’s reopening, and how we’re learning from the past and from our community to ensure that when our theatre re-opens it does so from a position of stability and strength, and is ready to properly serve the people of Oldham.

Among those in the audience was eco-poet Clare Townley, who later got in touch to share this poem, inspired by what she heard.

The Coli Answers Back

They said, “It’s too costly, the figures don’t stack,”

but the voices inside said, “We’re taking it back.”

They said it was bricks, budget lines, needs repair,

Oldham folk said no way, our history’s in there.

Through decades of nights where the ordinary shone,

where a stage and a spotlight made you belong,

because here was a first kiss, back row, stage left,

a full house ovation, Oldham warp and weft.

A lass in the lighting box learning her trade,

a local lad fluffing his lines on that stage,

this wasn’t a venue you could close and forget,

without leaving the town with a cultural debt.

When the spindle mills closed and the last shifts were done,

the yarns kept on weaving, still locally spun,

stories swapped from Shakespeare to kitchen sink plays,

that sounded like summat Auntie Doris would say.

Not a stage full of old hams playing parts for the crowd,

but Oldhamers telling it northern and loud,

they said relocate, reimagine, renew,

but the town said, “That isn’t what we want to do.”

You can’t pack up lifetimes in crates in a van,

or remove a shared history to fit someone’s plan,

so the people got stubborn, as folk round here do,

with petitions and placards and letters and queues.

And voices like Julie’s, clear, fierce, well-known,

spoke with the people and carried it home,

till the echo grew louder than any cut cost,

and those holding the purse strings realised what they’d lost.

Because bricks can be measured and budgets have schemes,

but a town without stories comes loose at the seams,

a theatre kept open on Fairbottom Street,

by the rhythm of lives lived through every heartbeat.

And centred in Oldham our proud Coliseum

calls out from the wings, “I’m still ‘ere, ee by gum!”

Many thanks Clare.  Many thanks also to the team at the GM Business Growth Hub and Greater Manchester Combined Authority for including us in their brilliant event.