The City that Walks on Water Project (CTWOW) is a community-led creative exploration of Southend-on-Sea’s historical legacy. It aims to create a dramatic and inclusive theatrical blueprint that informs and engages the rich and diverse heritage that has made a small fishing village into a thriving city.

CTWOW will work with local community groups using historical research and storytelling to find the people whose lives echo current times, and move history away from weighty tomes and dry lectures to playful scripts and engaging stories that will bring heritage to life across generations.

TWOW will be performed in Southend-On-Sea City over 5 days in September 2023 and will focus on the powerful real-life human dramas that have unfolded since the inception of the Pier in the 1830s. Each of the 8 scenes will be constructed to work as a standalone performance in smaller venues or as an immersive theatrical piece, inspired by archive and memory.

CTWOW aims to encourage local schools, theatre, and community groups to perform part or all of the scenes that make up the whole CTWOW production, and it will be an excellent opportunity for people to both explore and own their local heritage.

CTWOW workshops devising the scripts for each scene will examine why things we take for granted now came to play such an important part in the history of the city. Many of the stories of Southend Pier – immigration, identity, war, family disputes, poverty, sexism – resonate with current-day issues.

The project is working with a writer’s cooperative, local historians, and community groups/schools to generate and stage an innovative take on the last 200 years.