Agent 160 is making a Fun Palace

We have news! Agent 160 is making a Fun Palace at the WalesMillenium Centre in Cardiff this October.

Since we started Agent 160, we have been looking for inspiration from female theatre-makers. Aphra Behn was our first; she wasn’t just the first woman to earn her living as a playwright but also a spy, and her codename became our name. But radical theatre-maker Joan Littlewood has always been in the mix as well.

We love that when she was directing Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey, and the critics said Delaney was just like the Angry Young Men, Littlewood said no; Delaney was different because she knew what she was angry about.

In 1961 Littlewood had a vision, of a Fun Palace that would be a temporary, moveable “laboratory of fun” that would welcome everyone. It never happened. But now, her vision is being brought to life for the 21^st century. On 4^th-5^th October 2014, hundreds of pop-up local Fun Palaces will appear across the country, open to everybody, and free.

We were thrilled that the Wales Millennium Centre wanted to make a Fun Palace with us. We launched Agent 160 in Cardiff, and have been wanting to go back. Now, inspired by Littlewood’s boldness and joie de vivre, we will be all over the Wales Millennium Centre—and even out in a pop-up home in Cardiff Bay—performing new short plays in English and Welsh about all the curious and various things women can be. And we’ll be getting members of the public to join in and help us write a massive, group-written play, and see it performed. See you there!