Partnered with: Laxfield Low House, Suffolk
Dan Simpson is a writer, performer, producer, and educator. He makes highly engaging and contemporary work that is entertaining, smart, and funny. Social engagement and reaching new audiences are his key artistic motivations, and residencies are a fantastic opportunity to have significant impact.
Dan is working with the Laxfield Low House in Woodbridge, known locally as The Kings Head; a Beautiful 16th century thatched pub in the mid-west with a vibrant community feel. A unique venue, that is “still mainly unaltered for over 400 years, this pub has no bar, but serves the beer straight from the casks in the Tap Room!”
With his residency project, ‘Best Words, Last Orders’ Dan hopes to bring poetry into homes of the pub’s community. Encouraging them to virtually ‘prop up the bar’ by taking part in a crowdsourced poem, opening for a remote ‘happy hour’ workshop and enabling those less available to listen to the community inspired work online.
All of these pieces of work resulted in Laxfield inspired poetry being printed on posters to be hung in the pub itself, showing the fruits of the village’s collective labour over love to those who are ready to return in person and those who are still unable, enabling them to feel like a united pub community once again.
The collection of poetry that the pub inspired was also made available online. You can read the collection for yourself by CLICKING HERE