Shed Stories from Casson & Friends

Rachel – Tim could you introduce yourself first and a little bit about your dance company?

Tim – Yeah, so I’m Tim Casson and I’m the director or artistic director of Casson & Friends. And we are a kind of dance, what we say, is a dance theatre company, so we mix dance and theatre. We started in 2012, so we’ve been going about 13 years and we make a kind of joyful dance that we call people powered performance; so that’s performances and projects that we couldn’t make without talking to people and using people and their stories to inspire us.

Rachel -And could you tell us a little bit about the concept of Shed stories?

Tim – It came about really because I started thinking about getting a bit older and about ageing and I was thinking, well, I don’t like football and I don’t really go to the pub so what will I do? I started thinking about, my own life, and older men in my life – like my dad, and I was thinking, what kind of happens? What are you all doing? My parents were on the edge of retiring and there was a lot of talk about isolation, particularly in older men.

The previous show that we made was all about allotments and I’d come across some Men’s Sheds connected to allotments and community gardens. And I just was so heartened and excited by Men’s Sheds, it made me feel hopeful that there’s something to help people to not be so isolated.

And the more I looked into it, the more I kind of was really amazed by the kind of diversity of different types of groups and different spaces. Very weirdly actually my dad met you at the Harrogate Woodwork Show and I, at the time, hadn’t told him about that I wanted to make the next show about Men’s Sheds. And it was the phone call where I was going to say it, and he actually sort of beat me to it and he said, I’ve just met this woman called Rachel and I’ve heard about Men’s Sheds and I’m going to join! I was like, this is weird and now I have to interview my own dad for the first time to inspire a show!

So yeah, he’s now part of Harlow Hill Men’s Shed in Harrogate, which is relatively new.

I’m also interested in, I guess, artistically, groups of people that are interested in a thing that I don’t know very much about. So there’s also that curiosity because I’m not very handy and I’m not very practical! My dad does a lot of that for me, and it’s really nice to be working with him on this show.

Rachel – How did you design the show around Shedders and their experiences?

Tim – So it was a lot of other people being the expert and me being very stupid, which is a really lovely position to be in. So I just kind of went around the country working with a lot of artistic partners like theatres or art organisations and used them to find local Sheds near those places. We reached out to those Sheds in those areas and I basically just said, can I come in? Can I have a chat? And I didn’t really tell them about the dance bit because a lot of people get a bit scared by dance! I said, I’m making a theatre show, I’m making a play. And I did that: I visited 18 different Sheds across the country. I often came in when they were having their tea break and said, I’m making a show. If you want to come and chat with me, I’ll be sat in the corner with some biscuits and a tape recorder and I’m going to ask you lots of questions if you want to come and chat to me. I ended up talking to nearly 50 people.

Then what I do in terms of a process is I start to look at the themes that come out and then that starts to feel like, okay, the show has to be about this because everyone’s talking about it. They were things like mental health, about tea breaks and biscuits, about skills and things people have made, and then even, what’s the best biscuit? That was quite a hot topic.

And then we basically take all of that into the studio and into rehearsals and we build some script. So the script is not a story, it’s not narrated, but all of the script is exactly what people said, so nothing’s made up. It’s all real Shed stories.

And then sometimes because my background is dance, we kind of have a little look and see if movement might be the best way to sort of talk about something. So it’s kind of peppered with movement. One of the big sections is about connection and support. So there’s a kind of beautiful dance between the two male performers that is inspired by that kind of idea of shoulder to shoulder and it sort of came from how much dancing can you do when you’re connected shoulder to shoulder physically? And it ended up being this very beautiful thing.

So, I guess the other thing that a lot of people talk about rules in guidelines and handbooks so we have a whole section that’s all about a dancing handbook. So we’re thinking, how can we take the most boring thing and turn it into something really exciting and fun. There’s also a tea break in the show because tea breaks are really important.

Throughout the process as well, we’ve invited Shedders in to see the shows in progress to see what we could do. And just checking with them and saying, hey, does this feel like or look like what your experience of being a Shedder is? And that’s sort of helped to describe something and helps people feel seen and we’re representing this amazing community that makes it all happen.

The last sort of big theme, actually, was because as anyone who organises anything for this community knows, it is often quite a thankless task. So there is a whole section around that kind of kind of duck swimming analogy that it looks very calm from above but there’s a lot of work going on behind it all – working on all the things that nobody knows about but things wouldn’t happen without them doing it. So that felt really important to talk about as well in the show.

Rachel – What kind of reception have you had from Shedders around dance as it may be a bit of a new concept to some people?

I mean, I think it’s not a lot of people’s first choice of art form! So, as I say, we don’t necessarily lead with it. We say, come and see the show because it’s a show about Men’s Sheds and you’re going to like the themes. Then people generally get to the end of the show and they go, oh my gosh, I’ve never seen anything like that. I didn’t know dance could be like that. I’ve not seen people moving like that. And a lot of the time with dance, people sometimes feel like they don’t get it or they’re missing something. And we’ve never had that with this show. People go, I completely understood it and I knew what was going on and that the shoulder to shoulder dance at the end is really where and people kind of go, oh, it’s so beautiful to see men moving in such a gentle way with each other. So it’s, yeah, it’s been really overwhelmingly positive from people who I think didn’t know if they were going to like it, if that makes sense.

Rachel – Coming back to your work with the Shedders, how have you found working with members from the Shed community?

Tim – It’s very strange because on one hand, there is sort of typical Shedders and on the other hand, actually every Shed we’ve been to across the country has been totally different. I’ve mentioned Harlow Hill where my dad is, they helped us make some of the set for the show. So that’s been nice working with my dad as a creative collaborator and kind of making a thing and visiting and seeing it being fabricated, We’ve also been to Long Sutton Men’s Shed which was really great. Both to Long Sutton and Long Sutton Youth Shed. The Shed had had such great stories and they’re so well established and have such a massive membership that was really inspiring. And the Youth Shed actually hosted us. So often you think that if you’re making a dance show, it has to be in a dance studio with mirrors and ballet bars, but they cleared a corner of their workshop for us and that was our studio for a week. So while everyone was making in the workshop, we were making a show. And that was a really amazing thing! Sometimes we had to stop rehearsals because the power tools were a bit noisy and we couldn’t hear it hear ourselves! I think initially people were a bit baffled a bit then by the end, people go, oh, wait, you’re just making a thing, just like we’re making a thing. And it’s felt like a really lovely creative thing. We even sort of did a bit of dancing with the young people as well, which is really nice while we were there. So that’s been great. Where else? Quite a lot in Essex. So the Beacon Shed and Garon Park, they’ve been really supportive and lovely. A lot of different Sheds.

Rachel – That’s so amazing that you could spend time in a Shed, literally designing and creating the show and being part of the Shed.

Tim – Yeah, absolutely. I think it feels like it’s funny because it might not directly have an impact but we feel like it’s almost like the sawdust is still in the show. Like it’s still absolutely part of the fabric of what we’ve made. And we would always, basically at the end of every week we would invite each Shedders in. So we made it over about five or six weeks and every Friday we’d invited local Shedders to come and see it and to give us feedback in. That was so lovely to offer something that they might not get to see otherwise and help us to stay on track and help to give us the confidence. Like I said, I’m not an expert at all and I’m dealing with all these people that are so passionate and my biggest fear was making something that didn’t feel reflective of what they’re about and what they are, but then we did the full show the other day and it was Boston Men’s Shed, who we actually hadn’t had anything to do with, but came to our performance in Boston and they said, “I’m going to go back to the Shed and check for the cameras in the workshop because everything I’ve just watched for the last hour, I feel like I’ve had all those conversations with other Shedders and just in the last week!”. So that felt like the just most enormous endorsement of that we we’ve captured.

Men’s Sheds are such wonderful thing and I don’t think enough people know about them. And if someone can come and see the show, and if you’re a Shedder, feel reflected by it go, oh, that’s me and these are my people, and I feel really proud of that. Or if you’ve never heard of Sheds, people can kind of come and go, oh, I need to tell my dad about that, or my neighbour or my brother, or even I might sign up to a Shed, then that’s our job done. So it’s really about advocacy in a really creative way that comes from passion. So that’s the aim really.

Rachel- What would you say to someone that was unsure about coming to see the show?

Tim –  I’d just say leave your expectations at the door. It’s not ballet and it’s not strictly, it’s something like you’ve never seen. And if you can’t imagine it, then come along and then you won’t have to imagine, just come and check it out. We know that Shedders are such a massively interesting group of people from different walks of life with all these different experiences and you’ll come along and you’ll hear some stories that resonate with your own experiences and you’ll hear other stories that maybe that’s completely different experiences, but it’s all brought together by the Shed into something lovely.

Rachel – And finally, have you learned anything about Sheds that you weren’t expecting to learn or is there anything new that’s jumped out of you that you weren’t expecting?

Tim – I think what seems to be evolving – obviously it’s brilliant that people go to the Shed themselves for a purpose and a chance to share skills and their passion, but there’s also the impact on the wider community and just looking at how they’ve been used. And how a lot of Sheds are starting to be recognised as an asset to the community more widely and how there are commissions from local councils to fix things or you have people coming in and saying, oh, can you make me a table. It just feels like it’s really becoming a community resource and its impact is actually far beyond the sort of Shed walls. I think I hadn’t expected that and it was like every Shed grows to the shape of its community, both internally and externally in the way it needs it to be. And that’s a really amazing thing to be part of and to shine a light on.

Shed Stories will be announcing tour dates in Autumn 2025, to begin their tour in October. Casson & Friends will be performing two segments of Shed Stories at ShedFest on July 10^th, so make time to come and see them! Tim Casson will also be looking for Sheds that may wish to host their performance, if you are interested please contact Tim or visit him at ShedFest.