Latest blog post:

Hidden Spire Collective | Our Freedom: Then and Now | Session 4

Hidden Spire Collective | Our Freedom: Then and Now Phase 2, session 4,  12 October 2025 The Road to Freedom Last week Monday, we started the class session by getting into circle and doing...

Read Article

It’s not easy (talking about) being green

Our friends at house theatre network asked us what we’re doing about the climate crisis. Here’s what our Alex, our Head of Creativity & Communications, had to say: How do you talk about the...

Read More

Review: Learning To Fly

OFS reviewer and volunter usher Lucy saw Learning To Fly in September 2022. Originally, I wasn’t going to write a review. With my life descending into a black hole of appointments, assessments and errands,...

Read More

Why aren’t we doing a Christmas show, this year?

Since 2016, the Old Fire Station has produced Christmas shows for grown-ups. We identified a non-panto niche in the city’s arts offer, and with a lot of help from Arts Council England, we made...

Read More

What difference have I actually made?

Why Meaningful Measurement is important

Read More

What we learned at the 2021 Meaningful Measurement inquiry events

How to create ways of evaluating work that takes into account people’s stories and experiences, and shift the focus from the process of measuring, to the learning it gives

Read More

The journey to evaluation and storytelling in our every day

At the Old Fire Station (one of the organisations that founded the Marmalade core group), we spent many years struggling with evaluation. We found that conventional form filling, box-ticking and number counting didn’t always...

Read More

Review: Fifteen Years Of Granite

OFS reviewer and volunteer usher Lucy saw Fifteen Years of Granite, July 2022. Saturday 16 July, 6.30pm, and I have snuck away from a party to usher (and review) 15 Years of Granite, a...

Read More

Review: Cell Outs

OFS reviewer and volunteer usher Lucy saw Cell Outs, July 2022. Inside the theatre is creepy, but also quite spectacular. The stage represents a prison. There are cages full of items that look like...

Read More

Review: Naughty

OFS reviewer and volunteer usher Lucy saw Naughty, July 2022. It is 6.30pm on another sweltering July day and the cool of the drama studio is soothing and refreshing. I don’t know what to...

Read More

Review: And I’ll Blow Your House Down

OFS reviewer and volunteer usher Lucy saw And I’ll Blow Your House Down, July 2022. And I’ll Blow Your House Down is an honest, heartfelt and at-times hilarious play about family disability. It explores...

Read More

Review: In The Weeds

OFS reviewer and volunteer usher Lucy saw In The Weeds, June 2022. Seen at the Old Fire Station on 8th June 2022, In The Weeds tells the chilling story of a Japanese scientist who...

Read More

Review: Three Acres And A Cow

OFS reviewer and volunteer usher Lucy saw Three Acres And A Cow, May 2022. The 20th of May 2022. A sold out show at the Old Fire Station. 7pm. A couple minutes to spare and...

Read More