Small Stories, Local Places: A Place-Oriented Approach to Rural Crises

Since the British EU Referendum in 2016, there has been an ongoing media narrative of division: Remain voters against Leave voters, experts against ordinary people, the capital rich against the capital poor, and metropolitan centres against regional peripheries. This article explores the way in which theatre might offer a response to the perceived failure in understanding between these entrenched positions, using the lens of place. Making an argument for an ideological and dramaturgical shift from questions of voice – which have so far dominated theatrical critical discourse in response to Brexit – to place, I explore the potential of this change in focus and scale in relation to Matt Hartley’s play Here I Belong (2016) which toured with Pentabus Theatre – a professional rural touring company from the Midlands – to rural communities across England in 2016 and 2018. It is through this contact with rural communities that I propose that theatre can make a critical intervention: telling smaller stories about local places offers a way to reconnect with such communities during this crisis of communication.