A week before Christmas, I found myself at the Raynes Theatre in North London, about to watch theatre company Chickenshed’s A Christmas Carol. 

I’ve got a confession to make: I’ve never actually seen on stage, watched or read A Christmas Carol before. Not the original, not the Muppets version, and it wasn’t a set text at school.

Of course, I knew the story. A old grumpy man called Scrooge hates Christmas. He’s visited by three ghosts, they show him the past, present and future, and bingo! He’s a reformed Christmas fanatic. Right?

One thing’s for sure: this rendition was worth the wait.

The original score and script was, undoubtedly, brilliant. But that wasn’t what made this show genuinely moving. It’s the 200-strong cast that does that. It’s a cast that honestly, and unashamedly, represents the entirety of our society. Small children with hearing impairments act alongside teenagers with Down’s syndrome. A boy in a wheelchair sings loudly next to a young girl who performs through sign language. To have just one person signing a theatre show is unusual, but Chickenshed goes so much further. They have several signers, who are all fully integrated as characters.

True inclusion

The word inclusivity doesn’t do it justice. It’s not just the people on the stage, but also the audience who benefit from Chickenshed’s celebration of humanity. Every effort has been made to ensure that absolutely anybody and everybody can appreciate the show.

The show radiates acceptance. The company holds no auditions - if you want to join the cast, then you’re in. Clearly, but not unsurprisingly, kids want to join in their masses. So much so that the 200 that I saw perform are just one set of four. That’s right: this is a combined cast of 800 people. Although, the term “cast”, again, doesn’t do this group of people justice: they’re a community. (Side note: I have a feeling that a lot of the words I use won’t do these performers justice).

As I left (trying to wipe away the mascara streaks), I wanted to find out more. Unlike many others in the audience, I had limited knowledge of Chickenshed’s work and history. And so I made contact with Johnny Morton, the company’s senior creative producer.

“The basic premise of Chickenshed was that it was a theatre company that didn’t audition and just welcomed everyone. It was the ideal that the performing arts should be open to everyone,” he said.

The company began in 1974 - the name comes from the group’s very first rehearsal space - and was founded by Jo Collins and Mary Ward. In the 1980s, the young people in the company wanted to ensure that the organisation was truly open to everyone. They realised that there was a whole section of society who weren’t involved in their membership, says Morton - and so they started a theatre group on a Wednesday night for people with disabilities.

And how it’s grown. Supported by Lord and Lady Max Rayne - through whom Princess Diana became a royal patron, and very vocal advocate - they built their own theatre. Today, they offer children’s and youth theatre workshops for over 800 members aged between 5 and 21. There are absolutely no conditions on being able to attend.

“These are children whose parents are told very early about what the limitations of those young people are. And now they’re in an environment where they are achieving something, and that’s obviously a very emotional thing,” Morton says.

As well as the theatre in Southgate, North London, Chickenshed has a “ShedLink” programme in which they help to establish theatre groups led by artistic leaders who have been trained in the “Chickenshed” method. There are 19 in the UK, others in Moscow, St Petersburg, Helsinki and New York.

Inclusive theatre qualifications

And the theatre even offers full-time time BTEC and degree course in “inclusive performance”. They do outreach work with hundreds of organisations, from primary schools to prisons to domestic abuse services.

“When we got the building in 1994-5, we realised that we needed to have things going on in the day, so we decided to run a BTEC in performing arts,” explains Morton. “It was inclusive, we took people from any background - we didn’t ask for five A-C grades. We looked at the experience and a passion for inclusive performing.

“When we ran our BTEC course, we realised that post-18 students wanted to stay on at Chickenshed. So we wrote our own degree course. It’s validated by Middlesex University, and now it’s a BA programme in inclusive performance.” 

And on stage, the hard work and talent of those pupils is in full display. The older students guide the younger ones and there’s a team spirit that shines brightly.

“The way we work is about mentoring and cross-age groups working together. If you put people in an environment when they feel safe to be themselves and they can trust, and feel a sense of responsibility and a sense of ownership and they feel important within that framework then people will achieve. They let down the barriers and they show who they really are and they can explore that.

“What then you see on stage is truth, honestly and almost like baring one’s soul. What you see and what you’re moved by when you come to see it, someone said it’s like seeing humanity in action,” Morton says.

He’s undoubtedly right. It would be nearly impossible to see this production and not be amazed at the group of people who, outside of the theatre, would never, ever interact with each other, doing so on such a grand scale.

Morton goes on: “One little boy told me: ‘Chickenshed is that like feeling that Father Christmas is coming in the morning. Chickenshed is that feeling of excitement all the time.’”

Finally, those are the words that do this company, and the performance I saw, justice.

Chickenshed’s A Christmas Carol is on until 5 January. Find tickets and more information here.