Barnsley travelling telephone box tells town's stories

A red telephone box which plays audio monologues of stories from people in Barnsley through a handset is setting off on a tour of the town.

The "Calling Barnsley" project was created by Lung Theatre group who recorded the monologues and built a life-sized phone box, which has been housed in the Barnsley Civic Arts Centre since January.

Now, the group is hoping to "share the stories" as the box embarks on a six-month tour of the town's libraries.

Matt Woodhead, theatre co-director, said, "There's a poeticism in the way that people in Barnsley speak. You can't knock about town without someone pulling your ear and telling you the most incredible story."

Co-director Helen Monks, said their box was wider than a typical public one in order to allow wheelchair access.

"Otherwise it looks the same. You still pick up the receiver and dial a different number depending on what story you want to hear," she explained.

The theatre group worked with students at Barnsley College to collect and record the two-minute stories through workshops over a two-year period.

The students also helped produce and direct vocal actors to transform them into monologues.

Woodhead said they managed to collect a "whole chocolate box" of stories.

He said: "We've got a gorgeous story about the Christmas lights of Thurnscoe, about how a community came together - and then, in contrast, the story of someone getting a kebab thrown at them when they're in town on a night out."

The kebab story was Dr Ryan Bramley's own personal experience as a student.

Now a lecturer in education at the University of Sheffield, Bramley, born in Barnsley was struck by a kebab on a night out because he was "wearing a smartish blazer".

The group managed to collect more than 60 stories in total, which were picked up by publishers Faber and Faber and turned into a book.

Monks said it was "the right time" for the phone box, which can be dismantled into five parts, to move.

"One of the things that we found is that people really see themselves as cultural people in Barnsley so it's really important that the phone doesn't just sit in the town centre but it goes to all of people's local areas".

From 4 September, the phone box's new home for a month will be The Lightbox at Barnsley Central Library before moving on to libraries in Royston, Cudworth, Atherley, Goldthorpe and Penistone over the next six months.

It will also be stopping at Persistence Works Sheffield as part of University of Sheffield's Festival of the Mind.

Woodhead said the long-term home for the phone box was unknown but that this was "just the start of a conversation".

"This phone box is a beautiful celebration of Barnsley but you also don't need the phone box to go and tell your story. There's so many people that have got a story to tell so you have to get right in and start telling it," he added.

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