What’s In Store
Tour guide Vimal Korpal talking to participants during a tour of Wednesbury shops/businesses for the What’s In Store Festival. Here, they are gathered in Simone’s Bridal_September 2022. ©Phillip Parnell
In September 2022, Multistory collaborated with Black Country Touring to deliver a two day festival in Wednesbury Town Centre.
Following the success of BCT’s What’s In Store? Bearwood, it was Wednesbury’s turn to receive such an invigorating and hyper-local festival. Across the 23rd and 24th September, the town came to life with a range of activities and performances. Collaborating with Black Country Touring, we were joined by musical stilt walkers Top Bananas; Crow’s Nest Theatre who performed Is that a Yetti, Hetty?; street juggler Ben Cornish; Lollipop Patrol by Curious Cargo; and face-painters, Rainbow Faces.
As well as these festivities, the two-day event celebrated the success of Multistory’s Pop-up Poetry project (from the previous year) that saw local poets, partnered with shops/businesses in Wednesbury, to pen a poem. Following a similar format, poets Lorna Meehan and Suzan Spence took up residency in Allsorts and Mamma L’s Cakes throughout September to gather memories, stories and anecdotes from the shops’ owners, workers and customers. After forumlating a final piece from their time in residency, Lorna and Suzan performed their work in said shops during the What’s In Stoe festival.
Alongside the festivities, we also celebrated our project in which two local artists took up residency in two the town’s shops throughout September. Each artist developed a short performance based on the stories and memories gathered from shop owners , workers and customers alike. These were performed as part of the festival, with joyful and memorable recitals by Lorna Meehan at local wool shop and haberdashery Allsorts, and Suzan Spence in Mammas L Cakes.
Visitors could also attend a tour around some of the other shops and businesses in Wednesbury, led by Vimal Korpal and musician Derek Nisbet, to learn more from the people at the hear of the town.
Finally, we were joined by poet laureate Brendan Hawthorne who performed a piece inspired by conversations he had with local people. Occupying a market stall near the clocktower, visitors could listen to Brendan’s final work and learn more about his practice.