Creative Courses for Beginners

We run beginners friendly creative short courses and one-off taster workshops in community settings, responding to curiosities and interests of our participants. We believe that everyone is creative and the skills you learn through our workshops are easily transferable to everyday and professional life. Our sessions can be tailored to all ages, needs and levels of experience. Whether you drop in to one session or commit to the whole course – you will come away with confidence, new skills, ideas and friendships.

Our workshops include: podcast making, talk show hosting, public speaking, music making & singing, storytelling through theatre and film,...

Foundational

A lifetime ago in 1980 I purchased the debut Cardiac Arrest 7″ single at the OurPrice record shop in Kingston after my curiosity got the better of me. A Bus for a Bus on the Bus really was unlike any other record. Before long got to see Cardiacs play live for the first time, meeting a family of firm friends and forever deviating my pathway, theirs was set!

During the rest of the 80’s, trajectory spiralled outward, slowly at first then with a momentum that thrilled and sometimes made us nauseous. We travelled the country performing all sorts of crazy, driving...

Summary of changes for July 2025

Hey everyone!

This is the list of all the changes we've done to our projects during the month of July.

This month we sailed into the Juan de Fuca Strait, escorted by pods of orcas and a lone young humpback whale. The last time we...

Felinet

https://coopepys.org/helix-the-catch/embed/

On these very hot days the mind wanders about to compensate for the containment in the shadows and it’s only now as temperatures drop a little is there a moment to thread together some of those thoughts, which in the process uncovered previously unexpected connections.

The first of these is Felinet as featured on this HackADay page. After many years tracking so many fringe radio development projects this one slipped by until checking the title for this post! Electra surely has a hand in this but haven’t checked with her yet.

It’s been over a year since we all met up in...

“More ways to skin a cat”: Quacktion Time, The Wedding and Heal the Net – New participatory formats at The Pleasance Theatre

At The People Speak we have many strings to our bow. In May 2025 we had the opportunity to create brand new participatory structures at the Pleasance Theatre for The Critical Conversations series commissioned by Sage and Jester production company. The aim was to involve the audience in discussing misinformation, truth and build dialogue around different perspectives. We followed our principles of creating participatory performance:

Mikey as Brother Read-the-Room in ‘Heal the Net’ at The...

Бонус без слов: Всемирная Выставка в Осаке

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Summary of changes for May 2025

Hey everyone!

This is the list of all the changes we've done to our projects during the month of May.

Oquonie was released on the Playdate Catalog this month! We'd like to thank everyone who sent us photos of their progress in the game, it has been nice to follow along. The game is kind of our first official release on a modern handheld platform, and we're happy to...

Part and parcel of engagemen in Pendle – 15 years of collaboration with In-Situ and Building Bridges

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=at-P2Iab-f8

– Paul Hartley, In-Situ

The People Speak have been collaborating with In-Situ and Building Bridges for 15 years, helping the residents and stakeholders of Pendle Borough envisage a better and more connected borough of the future. As part of this ongoing project we have done a number of residencies, trained new Talkaoke hosts and produced events in the areas overlooked by the famous Pendle Hill: from Walkaoke – Talkaoke on the move, to Pendle Under The Hammer – a series of creative consultations with the residents of Colne, Nelson, Barnoldswick and Brierfield to...

Всё когда-нибудь кончается

Сегодня, как и обещал, я прекращаю вести этот блог. Может быть ненадолго, а может и навсегда...
На данный момент у меня нет планов вести его реже, или возобновить позже, или на другой площадке. Планы иногда меняются - never say never. Но на данный момент блог закрыт. Я вёл его по честному, от себя, все десять лет, и ни разу не писал ничего за деньги.
Я всегда хотел, чтоб у моего блога было достойное окончание. И я его сделал.
Вот он, тот финал, который я задумал четыре года назад - за исключением того, что мой персонаж решил далеко не все свои проблемы, а...

Вечерний Шэнчьжэнь

Вечереет. До самолёта в Сингапур ещё несколько часов, а значит есть немного времени погулять по современному центру Шэнчьжэня. Посмотреть на чудеса китайского градостроительства, на неоновые небоскрёбы, широченные тротуары, и несчисленные забегаловки...
Да, это было почти три месяца назад, но всё руки не доходили вам показать. Думал: успею, не успею? Вот, выходит, что успел! Поехали:
1. Как мы знаем, в Китае запретили строить небоскрёбы. Но к счастью уже есть много построенных. И их, насколько я понимаю, просто обязательно украшать разными лампочками, чтоб город вечером был похож на праздничный торт.
2. "Фестивальный проспект". Что это, почему? Я так и не понял. Фестивалить тут я не...