Sharing Heritage
They focussed on working men and the case of Geoffrey Williamson who was arrested for making ‘improper approaches’ to a plain-clothed railway officer. When arrested and questioned Geoffrey revealed names of men he had had sex with, beginning a domino effect of arrests, prison sentences, aversion therapy and suicide.
The research created an evocative drama performance, ‘a Haunted Existence’, staged in an old police station, with additional funding from a Kickstarter campaign and the Arts Council. It used projection and music technology to immerse audiences and was accompanied by a timeline display and after-show historian talk. To enable others to reveal hidden histories, the project created a student pack, demonstrating how archive material can be performed to reveal the stories of people marginalised by history.
Tom Marshman said: “Many younger students didn’t really (appreciate) the impact of living in England before the sexual offences act. It also opened up many conversations about the dominant power structures and many silences that are present in archives.”