Chol - the Huddersfield theatre company creating stories for and with children

Drama and encountering theatre as a child had a profound and lasting effect on me and so it is with huge delight I arrive at Chol this week, a Huddersfield theatre company that specialises in making work for and with children.

“We have a genuine love and passion for co-creating stories and performances with our local communities, in particular local children, young people and families. We know that sharing and creating stories together always produces more interesting, relevant and exciting performances – ideas generated collaboratively will always be better than what one of the Chol’s directors could ever dream up alone,” says Vicky Storey.

Normally I would speak to a company or building’s artistic director or chief executive, but Chol is a little different to other companies, so Storey is chosen at random to represent the group.

“We function as what we call a Chol-Operative, a flat hierarchy leadership model, reflected in equal pay between all staff and Chol-Operative associates, so we’re a team all working at strategic and management level,” she says, which is why it seems appropriate to mention the other members of the Chol-Operative Lauren Ash, Mandeep Samra, Lauren Townsend, Jess Woodhead, Ruth Dyer and Carly-Ann Clarke.

The company was set up in 1989 by husband and wife team Adam and Kim Strickson to present a mix of professional and community productions. By 2002 the impressive Susan Burns had become director, working on community projects with children and young people and focussing on refugee and asylum seeker families.

In 2004 it made the important step of becoming resident company at its home town’s Lawrence Batley Theatre, solidifying its position in the community.

“We believe the work we do supports young people to feel powerful, valued and connected. We know that engagement in theatre and the arts increases confidence. Over and over again our young people really blow us away with what they achieve,” says Storey.

She has worked with Chol for over a decade now. “I was a keen postgraduate returning to Yorkshire after completing my MA in London. I was nurtured and supported to develop my own and the company’s practice by the Chol team. I loved the energy and commitment of the company, it’s a place of nurture for staff and artists as well as the children and young people we work with. I was hooked from the get go.”

Lauren Ash, another company member, says: “I would completely agree with Vicky, I joined as a freelance artist in 2015 and the more I found out about the ethos of the company, the more I wanted to work with them. I enjoyed working freelance, but the longer I worked with the company, the more I realised Chol would be the one company that would change my mind. When I was offered a role with the company it felt like a piece of the puzzle had slotted into place.”

It’s a refrain I’ve heard time and again while writing these profiles. Yorkshire theatre is a supportive, nurturing ecosystem and it is incredibly successful. Part of the reason for its success is because these companies are run on the passion of the people that make them.

Or as Storey puts it: “We are all a bit geeky. We love thinking deeply about how drama, play and theatre can help children and young people feel powerful and connected. We are all fascinated in learning more about how Chol’s work can increase young people’s confidence and agency.”

So how does this work in practice? In 2015 Taking Back the Town, which Storey calls a ‘defining production’, was a large scale piece working with a huge cast of young people travelling across the town centre in a performance which combined artform with everyday culture. The production led to a trilogy of performances in Rotherham, Tribo Fogo in 2017 and Escape Realms in 2019.

“The White Line was our performance at the Big Masala Tea Party event in 2017 in collaboration with Let’s Go Yorkshire. It was a community event to mark the 70th anniversary of the partition of India. The event took place in the courtyard at Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield.

“The vibe of the whole day, the events and performance really captured the essence of Chol, our history of communities coming together to take time for each other, to listen, to share, to understand and connect.”

Of course connecting these days it’s tricky. “One huge positive that has come out of this has been our decision to buy and renovate a campervan, our ‘Cholavan’.”

The ‘Cholavan’ has become the company’s mobile home allowing it to continue to work and perform through the pandemic.

“Theatre is going to be needed more than ever,” says Storey. “And I hope we will continue to pull together as a sector to ensure that every child and young person experiences a range of theatre and drama in their lives to support our collective healing as we emerge from this.”

‘Cholavan’ fundraising campaign

Chol recently completed its most ambitious fundraising campaign yet. Over two hundred people helped the company reach its £15,000 target, with the plan over the coming months to renovate the Cholavan and allow it to tour a full summer programme. “The idea of the van came about when restrictions in Kirklees came in the night before production week last year. In the spirit of ‘the show must go on’ we travelled out to every member of the cast with our costume designer to drop off costumes and green screen.”

Details www.crowdfunder.co.uk/project-cholavan