Eastbury Manor and Punchdrunk Enrichment Host St Ethelburga's Hallowtide Fair This Weekend

This Halloween, Punchdrunk Enrichment are working with local Barking and Dagenham residents to reimagine a legendary Hallowtide Fair that visited Barking every October in the nineteenth century but has long been forgotten. Created for and by the community in a magnificent Tudor building - Eastbury Manor House - St Ethelburga's Hallowtide Fair will be a magical experience for local families featuring stalls, festive music and traditional games to captivate all ages.

St Ethelburga was Abbess of Barking Abbey and each October pilgrims would flock to Barking to commemorate her Feast Day. A local fair was held in her honour attracting visitors from far and wide. Eastbury Manor House is an enchanting property that has changed little in appearance since it was built in the 1600s. The building has been used as a museum, an Air Raid shelter, a hospital, a stable, a merchant's house, an outpost to Barking Abbey and may even have played its part in Guy Fawkes' gunpowder plot.

Over the last few months, Punchdrunk Enrichment has invited Barking and Dagenham residents to Eastbury Manor to share memories of the local area and their responses to this extraordinary building. These stories have inspired the Hallowtide Fair which will take place over three days from 31st October to 2nd November and will be designed, built and brought to life by the local community.

This will be a Halloween celebration like no other - something unexpected and new, created from local history, memories and legends. Visitors who delve a little deeper will be rewarded; discovering unexpected mysteries, hidden rooms and surprises within this magnificent Tudor building. As the Hallowtide Fair is brought back to life the stories of the past begin to seep into the present...

Tickets are available to Barking and Dagenham residents here: http://www.thebroadwaybarking.com/event/st-ethelburgas-hallowtide-fair/.

St Ethelburga's Hallowtide Fair is a Landmark commission for Creative Barking and Dagenham -- a three-year project creating unique creative opportunities for Barking and Dagenham and the people that live here.

PUNCHDRUNK - Since its formation in 2000, Punchdrunk has established an international reputation as a ground-breaking theatre company, creating epic worlds and immersive theatrical experiences that have won the company awards and a popular following - their most recent London production The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable was seen by over 200,000 people.

Since 2008, Punchdrunk's Enrichment team has taken this immersive practice into communities, creating performances with and for children, young people and the wider community. Punchdrunk Enrichment has enjoyed widespread success, working with over 40,000 young people and community members since its inception. Punchdrunk Enrichment has worked with over 200 schools, creating groundbreaking educational projects which place pupils and teachers at the heart of the experience and provide a real catalyst for learning.

The House Where Winter Lives, their biggest production to date, opened to critical acclaim in 2012 at Discover Storytelling Centre Punchdrunk Enrichment's next major project will be Against Captain's Orders: A Journey into the Uncharted developed in association with the National Maritime Museum and running from 28 March 2015 www.rmg.co.uk/againstcaptainsorders

Punchdrunk Enrichment aims to give audiences and participants an unforgettable experience, which ignites and inspires their imaginations by involving them directly in an enthralling theatre story.

CREATIVE BARKING AND DAGENHAM - Creative Barking and Dagenham (CBD) is an action-research programme during 2014-16, funded by Arts Council England's Creative People and Places Fund and by Barking and Dagenham Council. It is designed to test out new approaches to engaging local people in creative things to do and see. Our aim is to a long lasting difference to 1000's of people in the borough, by involving them with new ideas, hobbies, careers and fun things to do that increases the value people place on arts and culture.

CBD is managed by a consortium, made up of Studio 3 Arts, Arc Theatre, A New Direction, Collective Voice and Barking and Dagenham Council. We are also working in partnership with Barking and Dagenham Council for Voluntary Service, Barking and Dagenham College and with Barking Enterprise Centre.

CBD's Landmark Commission series aims to:

• Creatively connect people to place -- increasing peoples' pride in their area and their sense of belonging.
• Develop the borough's reputation as a cultural destination
• Test the potential of site-specific work in reaching new audiences for the arts and stimulating existing audiences.
• Encourage local reflection on the future of their local environment, at a time of large-scale regeneration and change.

For more information go to www.creativebd.org.uk, follow on Facebook: www.facebook.co.uk/CreativeBandD and Twitter @CreativeBandD, or add your own images of local creativity on Instagram at #creativebd.

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