our work

our town story

Our Town Story

In the year 2000, Eastside took part in McDonald's Our Town Story, part of the New Millennium Experience at the Millennium Dome in London. Our Town Story invited children from every local education authority across the UK, to perform the story of their local communities through drama, dance, music and song to 1500 people in the Millennium Dome. Westminster City Council commissioned Eastside to represent 2000 years of history live on stage, with a cast of 40 children from local schools. We created a performance that combined physical theatre, dance, carnival and film to tell the story of a day in the life of the City of Westminster - the political and cultural heart of the capital. The performance took place in Autumn 2000, but preparations had begun much earlier in the year. Young people from across Westminster took part in workshops throughout the summer holidays to undertake research, learn new performance skills and develop their ideas which were fed into the final piece. Musician and composer Patrick Nunn wrote and conducted an original musical score as a soundtrack to accompany the show, which was performed by a full youth orchestra from Trinity College of Music. The score perfectly captured the relentless energy of the city and the final performance took the audience on an unforgettable journey through 24-hours in Westminster. Taking as its starting point, the beauty and mystery of the city as described in Wordsworth's poem 'Composed on Westminster Bridge', the piece opened with sleepy eyed commuters rising in the early morning to make their way to work, transitioning through the frenetic energy of rush hour, to the more relaxed pace of street performers and shoppers. The show also featured the political heart of the city, Westminster's parks and gardens, the Notting Hill Carnival and the vibrant West End. The back-drop to the performance was a 20-minute film, which can be viewed below.