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Buy The Intercessor<\/em> paperback or ebook from Amazon<\/a>, Barnes & Noble<\/a>, Bookshop.org<\/a>, or Ingram<\/a>! <\/strong> <\/p>\n NOTE<\/strong>: This post is to introduce you to the 65th episode of Fran\u00e7ois Matarasso\u2019s and my monthly podcast, \u201cA Culture of Possibility.\u201d This episode will be available starting 19 June 2026. You can find it and all episodes at iTunes<\/a>, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net<\/a>\u2018s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Podbean<\/a> and find links to accompany the podcasts. <\/em><\/p>\n Clare Reynolds, Co-Founder and Co-Director of Restoke in Stoke-on-Trent\u2014a post-industrial city in the Midlands of England\u2014was our third interviewee on A Culture of Possibility<\/strong>, back in our first season in 2021. Hearing quite a bit of buzz about Restoke\u2019s current work, we thought it was time to check in again. A lot happened during those five years\u2014the COVID pandemic and a bunch of other bad news, to be sure, but also a remarkable amount of good news for Restoke and its communities.<\/p>\n In 2021, Restoke was acquiring a building which is now a well-established center for its work<\/strong>. \u201cWe restored the space,\u201d Clare explained. \u201cIt was used as a magistrates court for 50 years, but originally was a ballroom on the first floor of this old town hall, so we restored it back to a ballroom during COVID, and then reopened. During that time having a place, especially having a really big space to gather people, was hugely important. At the same time, we became a National Portfolio Organization<\/a> with Arts Council England, so we\u2019ve had real growth, but also stability as an arts organization, which is amazing. The building is both a source of beautiful connection and gathering, and also a lot of work, a lot of resource, and a lot of DIY.\u201d<\/p>\n For those who aren\u2019t familiar with English grants programs, Clare explained National Portfolio Organizations<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s a rolling program of funding. If you become an Arts Council national portfolio organization, you get three years of guaranteed core funding to be able to deliver your program. Historically, it wouldn\u2019t have been many community arts organizations that got it, but when the Arts Council here in the UK did its latest strategy, which was called \u201cLet\u2019s Create,\u201d that was driving a lot more money towards organizations that are working really closely with their communities and really thinking about the relevance of their art to the places they were in. I think a lot more smaller grassroots organizations joined the portfolio in the last round, and we were one of those.\u201d<\/p>\n Restoke is busy!<\/strong> Clare estimated that there are around seven workshops a week in their facility\u2014for all ages, toddlers, children, adults. For quite a while, they\u2019ve created a major show every two years, and this year, that\u2019s accelerated. \u201cI\u2019m working on a new project with girls aged 10 to 13 that\u2019s called The Friendship Lab, and that\u2019ll be performed in July. Historically it\u2019s been every two years, but now we have the freedom to flex and respond. This show kind of came out of nowhere after working with this age of girls, and I was like, \u2018Oh, these girls are experts in friendship, we need to make a show about friendship with this age.’\u201d<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois looked back to the COVID period, asking how Restoke had responded to the many difficulties the pandemic and related changes represented. How did they get from there to here?<\/p>\n \u201cOur performance work,\u201d Clare explained, \u201chas always been addressing social issues and bringing people together<\/strong> to look at issues through different lenses, a lot through lived experiences and sharing stories. We\u2019ve developed a whole practice around that work. Our first project when we returned after COVID was a brilliant opportunity, because we were commissioned by the National Theatre\u2019s Public Acts program to create an episode of The Odyssey. They were doing a nationwide retelling across five different locations, and we were asked to create one of those episodes, The Lotus Eaters. It was a brilliantly resourced and funded project, and we were able to work with a lot of people in Stoke. It was one of my artistically favorite shows that we\u2019ve made. <\/p>\n \u201cWe started to notice that post-COVID, people were not okay.<\/strong> We exist to create those spaces where people can talk freely about their experiences and share their lived experiences. That\u2019s always been an edge that needs a lot of care and support and a lot of ethical consideration. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the post-COVID world or the cost of living crisis and all the turbulence going on, but there\u2019s obviously been this stripping away of social services, and in places like Stoke, that\u2019s felt really strongly. There isn\u2019t really that support system around people anymore, so when you invite people into a space where they can free themselves or open up some of that, and they\u2019re not being supported elsewhere, we\u2019ve had to consider the ethics of the work we\u2019ve always done. Is that safe now when people are struggling just to live and to afford food and to get their basic needs met? We\u2019re having to reconsider working in a way which opens up conversations about difficult things, because whereas previously we felt like we could hold that with our frameworks, now it feels trickier. So we\u2019re doing a lot of work this year looking at that and how we continue to exist and to make work that brings people together in the same way, but that is maybe safer. We\u2019re working things out. Restoke can feel like a real haven, a real other space for people, and continuing to do that with the world outside the building is getting harder.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019ll want to listen to the episode to hear more of the thoughtful conversation about care and related subjects this stimulated. <\/p>\n The title of this episode comes from a nice turn of phrase Clare shared in talking about Restoke\u2019s plans<\/strong>, \u201cscaffolding hope.\u201d She explained that it may come to pass that \u201cyou realize that you\u2019re feeling quite hopeless, that there\u2019s a lot of hopelessness. As organizations and people embedded in these communities, you feel that too, like you\u2019re not separate from it. So we\u2019re trying as an organization, as creatives, to look at like what makes us feel hopeful and what keeps that hope alive for us. That is often the arts, the making and the sharing of that with other people. We realize that we create structures of hope for other people, opportunities and places and projects that make people feel more hopeful about where they are. How do we expand that to ourselves and to the organization?\u201d One more great question that came up in the episode.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Some of Restoke\u2019s more recent projects have been cocreated with young people<\/strong>. The Power Project<\/a> is a group of teenagers creating their own performances and other projects. The Friendship Lab<\/a> features a group of young girls who give adults advice on their friendship dilemmas, which sounds fabulous to me.\u00a0 Click around the Restoke website to learn more about all of its projects. <\/p>\n Here\u2019s an extremely sweet clip from The Friendship Lab<\/a>, Restoke\u2019s newest show. <\/p>\n And \u201cPlayin\u2019 With My Friends<\/a>\u201d by B.B. King. <\/p>\n