Appetite presents… Lookout by Andy Field and Beckie Darlington.

Created with local primary school children, Lookout is a one-to-one encounter between one adult audience member and one child performer. Two people of very different ages, meeting to have a conversation. They stand together somewhere high up, looking out at the streets and buildings of the city below, and begin to talk about its future. They see before them the world as it is now and as it might be many years from now.

Performances of Lookout will be taking place on Saturday 16 & Sunday 17 July in the David Weatherfall building on Keele University campus. Tickets for Lookout cost £5 for adults and £4 for concessions and can be purchased from the New Vic website here.

A short documentary following a version of Lookout created with Inside Out Theatre in Beijing.

Transport and parking 

The full address for the building is Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG and can be found in the centre of the campus.

There is a car park located in front of and to the left of the main entrance to the building. There are 5 Blue Badge parking spaces. Car parking is free on Saturdays and Sundays. There is a bus stop located within 150m (164yds) of the venue.

More about Lookout…

First created in Glasgow in 2015, versions of Lookout have since been presented in towns and cities across the world, from Manchester to Shanghai and Cairo to Llandudno. In 2017 the project was awarded the Spirit of the Fringe award at the Auckland Fringe Festival in New Zealand.

Now at this moment of uncertainty and upheaval, Lookout is returning to the UK for the first time in over four years for a series of new performances created with children whose lives have all been affected by the pandemic in very different ways. This is a chance for those children to look toward the future, to give shape to their hopes and fears, to dream both of spectacular sci-fi utopias and all the smaller more everyday changes they think might make their home town a better place to live.

Lookout is a small encounter full of big ideas. An attempt to consider some difficult questions in a simple way. Half an hour out of your day that might change the way you look at your city forever.

‘Lookout is a warning and a challenge: a little thing that leaves big questions behind; an intimate encounter that manages to take in the entire city. It gives you a glimpse of a possible, even a probable, future – one that may or may not include you – and charges you to do something about it. Not for your sake, or for mine, but for the future itself.’

Matt Trueman, WhatsOnStage

‘Lookout breaks the traditional stereotype of the child performer as almost a pet. A child performer here is not just the beautiful, docile and pleasant little creature, but rather a responsible professional who has the responsibility of leading the whole performance and of guiding each spectator on a unique journey where both – the performer and the spectator – stand on equal ground and exchange intimate visions of their lives in relation to the geography of the city and to the personal memories of their respective dwellings.’

Nora Amin, Ahram Online

Featured image by De Souza

Documentary credits:

Created and produced by Andy Field & Beckie Darlington

Music and Sound Design by Tom Parkinson

Dramaturgy by Sibylle Peters

Originally commissioned by The Arches Glasgow. Supported by Arts Council England.

Appetite would like to thank the staff and children at St Luke’s Primary School, Silverdale for being part of Lookout.