About Documental Theatre
Documental Theatre platforms quiet stories with loud voices.
Documental stories begin with interviews and archive finds. Their productions document British life in all its variety through playful, thought-provoking audio, theatre and musical productions. Documental want their shows to open up their arms and welcome the audience in. Increasingly, they’re involved in community action; Makaton choirs, songs created with rural communities, podcasts for community stations up and down the country, and a grown-up musical with Makaton signing.
Devon-based Documental is led by Kevin Elyot Award-winning writer Lucy Bell and local producer Naomi Turner. Their associates include award-winning neuro-diverse, carer and disabled creatives from the South West. Lucy was part of the first graduating class of producers on the Northcott Futures programme in 2020. Documental Theatre have since returned to our artist development programme, now called Elevate, to lead a masterclass on writing and dramaturgy in 2023, and to host Newsicals and perform Scaffolding in 2024. Naomi Turner co-produced our inaugural Reclaim Festival in November 2024.
For years, Devon has been quite a tough eco-system in which to create work. The problem with that is this: the issues and stories which affect people living regionally, particularly in the South West, don’t get a wider airing. South West communities can feel like they are not entitled to author or inform ground-breaking arts. I am so delighted to be supported by the Northcott because the talented team there are capable of making all sorts of ambitious goals come true. It genuinely feels like time to “level up” the theatre landscape.
Lucy Bell
Documental Theatre’s Work
Songwriting for carers & the people they support
In Autumn 2024, Documental Theatre are teaming up with Sing & Sign Jukebox Choir to offer a free and accessible short songwriting course. The course will take place over six weeks, starting from Wed 3 Nov, online and in-person. Participants can enjoy a fun and relaxed opportunity to dip their toe into the world of songwriting, connect with other carers and PWLDs and express their creatively.
Elevate Festival: Newsicals
During our inaugural Elevate Festival in October 2024, part of our year-round artist development programme Elevate, Documental hosted an informal afternoon of drinks, chat and ideas for new musicals. Newsicals showcased original musical theatre songs by local talent, demonstrating Devon’s growing musical scene and platforming a number of exciting and ambitious new musicals which are being developed right here in Exeter and the surrounding areas.
Newsicals also included a performance from Documental’s own Sing & Sign Jukebox Choir, comprised of people from the local learning disability community (partially verbal adults, children, carers and teaching assistants) who come together to sing and sign iconic pop songs, with the help of their brilliant choir leader Joanne Rogers.
Sing & Sign Jukebox ChoirScaffolding
Sheridan is having a bad day. Her church is closing, Adult Social Care are on her case, and she can’t work out what ingredients she needs to make a bomb. With no one else to turn to, she climbs the scaffolding around the leaking church steeple with a few questions for Whoever Is In Charge.
Scaffolding is an explosive new play about strength, love and community, produced in association with Bristol Old Vic and Pleasance Theatre Trust for the prestigious Edinburgh National Partnerships programme.
Following a critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe, Scaffolding was performed at our city-centre Barnfield Theatre as part of Elevate Festival in October 2024. In 2025, Documental Productions completed a nationwide tour of the remounted play, directed by Natalie Simone with Kerry Norton in the role of Sheridan. You can watch a subtitled recording below of the performance at Sterts Arts and Environmental Centre.
“Put simply, Scaffolding is why we go to the theatre”
Western Morning News
Mary & The Matrons
It’s the start of the Swinging Sixties, Harold Macmillan says We’ve Never Had It So Good and dauntless Dr Mary Sheridan is on a nationwide inspection tour of “Mental Deficiency Hospitals”, the places many learning disabled children lived out their childhoods. It’s also the start of the Tricksy Twenty-Twenties, and Millie Moore, a tenacious learning-disabled school leaver, wants to follow her star. Both Mary and Millie know things never work till everyone sings from the same song sheet. Can Mary change the system in time for Millie to get her chance? Six short decades later, we’ll find out.
Inspired by the inspection reports of Dr Mary Sheridan, a workshop performance of Mary & the Matrons was presented at the Barnfield Theatre in October 2023, featuring a band, an infectious 60s-inspired soundtrack, Makaton singing and an integrated cast. A recording of the performance is available to watch online for free.
Watch Mary & the MatronsVillages in Action: Small is Enough
Small is Enough is an ‘Extended Play’ record created for Villages in Action in 2023, in partnership with community groups on Dartmoor and in Teignbridge. The four original songs were inspired by the stories and perspectives of different participants at Dunsford Memory Café, Made Well C.I.C. day centre, Community Links and Riversedge Court retirement apartments in Okehampton.
The music, lyrics and arrangements were created by Ben Glass, Megan Taper and Lucy Bell with choir leading by Megan Taper and Naomi Turner. The songs were sung by a community choir in Bovey Tracey including singers Helen, Lindsay and Sheila. The songs encompass the vibrant textures of small Devon communities, from feminist chickens to moonlit dips, and were recorded at Exeter’s Sound Gallery Studios.
Listen to Small is Enough
Would Like to Meet
“When I get married, I want somebody to get excited about taking my knickers off, not having to help me put them on…”
Would Like To Meet is an original six-part podcast series exploring dating and disability, which went live in Dec 2022.
Comedian, writer, and wheelchair-user Ngozi Ugochukwu lifts the lid on her dating life in a quest to find ‘the one’. Along the way, Ngozi meets a raft of unique voices – from performers to wheelchair dancers to sex workers – and is exposed to a new perspective on dating that, even as a person with disabilities, she never knew existed.
Listen to Would Like to MeetProps
Created in 2022, Props is a co-creation project about love, care and isolation; a digital archive and radio series spotlighting the lived experience of people in support roles, paid or otherwise.
Ties That Bind
Following the success of Props, Documental produced Ties That Bind, a collection of original audio written from the perspective of three different writers, each using the Devon landscape as a starting point..
Grown Ups
Before Documental was selected as an Associate, Lucy Bell was successful in securing one of the Northcott’s The Time (for change) Is Now commissions, resulting in a short film: Grown Ups. Inspired by interviews undertaken by students from Dawlish College with retired adults, Grown Ups shares stories across generations, gathering reflections on life from people with a broad range of perspectives and experiences.
“My parents are now in their eighties. I want to explore what that vantage point looks like. I want to know what feels important as you age, so that I can try to live meaningfully now.”
Lucy Bell
Grown Ups was edited by Ngozi Ugochukwo, also a member of Documental’s advisory board.
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