Quarantine

Quarantine is an ensemble of artists and producers interested in what it means to live right now. Our work is about the here and now.

We are rooted in Manchester but make and tour work across the world. Quarantine creates theatre, performance and other public events. In its form, content and process of creation, it examines the world around us. Past projects have included shared meals, family parties and a journey in the dark for one person at a time - as well as performances on stage, watched by audiences in seats.

07/10/2026

📸 Some photographs from our latest edition of 12 Last Songs – made in the Netherlands for Noorderzon Groningen, in the former Niemeyer to***co factory.

Bringing together more than 30 workers from across the city, we moved through 600 projected questions, spanning topics and themes that took us from beginnings to endings: from morning to night, from the start of work to retirement, from birth to death.

Live video was streamed into the space from across the city. People in transit and at leisure – perhaps the platform of a train station; guests gathering for a wedding at the town hall; a concert, a meal in someone’s home…

Thanks to everyone who joined us to see our tenth version of this show.

Photographs: Nikola Buçko

12/08/2026

🍽️ The next edition of No Such Thing in our ongoing collaboration with Touchstones Rochdale takes place this Saturday as part of Side-by-Side festival!

In this special breakfast edition, Touchstones’ Community Curators from The Dining Room project will be hosting the conversations; encounters between strangers, shaped, experienced, and remembered by those two people alone.

📸 These pictures are from our May dates, hosted at Rochdale Ukrainian Club, with a menu of questions and a menu of Borsch, Varenyky and more.

This weekend's slots are fully booked, but stay tuned for more dates to be announced later in the year.

23/07/2026

🎉 We’re making our tenth 12 Last Songs this summer in the Netherlands for Noorderzon Groningen in the former Niemeyer to***co factory.

It’s our sixth time presenting work in Groningen, and Noorderzon’s a festival we love.

As always with 12 Last Songs, we’re inviting 30-or-so people from Groningen to join us across 12 hours. A builder might build a wall, a hairdresser might cut someone’s hair, a chef might prepare a meal… We’ll find out what they do, and how they see themselves in the world.

These 12 hours turn into a portrait of a city, built from the different workers that inhabit it.

See you there?

Book: https://www.noorderzon.nl/en/programme/12-last-songs

📸 Quarantine, 12 Last Songs, at Battersea Arts Centre - BAC, 2026. Photo: Ewan Michael Riley

17/06/2026

📖 From Saturday 27 June – Saturday 4 July, Quarantine artist Kate Daley will be at Didsbury Library presenting Building of spines as part of Didsbury Arts Festival.

Over seven days in the library, a book will be researched, written, edited, printed and bound by hand.

In Didsbury, we'll be working with writer Teresa Brayshaw, who'll create a work of collective fiction shaped by answers people in the library give to a set of questions.

Every morning and afternoon the questions change, moving through the classifications of the Dewey Decimal system – from 900: History and Geography, to 000: Computer Science, Information and General Works.

On the last day, the book will be handed over to the library to be processed, categorised and entered into their collection.

❓ Building of spines invites us to reflect on our personal histories in relation to the people around us: what questions do we have? What knowledge do we value and hold on to? And how do we choose to spend the time available to us?

📸 Building of spines, Chemnitz. Mark Frost

15/05/2026

We’ve published a tribute on our website to our collaborator and friend Mike Brookes, who died in the first week of May, written by Quarantine’s Co-Artistic Director Richard Gregory.

Mike was an integral and essential part of Quarantine’s work and story from the very beginning, 28 years ago. In production credits, he was our Lighting Designer, yet of course, as with all good and complex collaborations, the role, relationship and contribution was both that and so much more...

He leaves a gap that can’t be filled and we’ll miss him terribly.

Our thoughts and love are with Mike’s partner Rosa, his family in Sheffield, his daughters and all his friends and collaborators.

The full tribute is on our website: https://qtine.com/notebook/mike-brookes-1965-2026/

15/04/2026

This May, we’re hosting No Such Thing in Rochdale, continuing a series we began in 2025 in collaboration with Touchstones Rochdale.

We’ll be hosting four editions across the year.

After our most recent version in London, one guest shared this feedback: ‘It made my week! I’ve had a rough one and was missing meaningful interaction.…so everything aligned in the most beautiful way today! I’m eternally grateful for this extraordinary event, and for your generosity’.

Read more about No Such Thing: https://qtine.com/work/no-such-thing/

09/04/2026

A Public Address: in pictures 📸

Alongside A Public Address, in partnership with Battersea Arts Centre - BAC and Welcome to Wandsworth – London Borough of Culture 2025-26, we commissioned local photographer Steve Reeves to take a series of photos of people in the borough.

On our website we've selected a series of these images, to sit alongside portraits taken as part of The people of Lavender Hill, and documentation of the performances themselves.

🔗 https://qtine.com/notebook/a-public-address-in-pictures/

📸 Vincent, part of Quarantine’s The people of Lavender Hill, 2026. Photo: Kate Daley
📸 Quarantine, 12 Last Songs, at Battersea Arts Centre, 2026. Photo: Ewan Michael Riley
📸 Hiranya, part of Quarantine’s The people of Lavender Hill, 2026. Photo: Kate Daley
📸 Quarantine, Why I am and why I am not: Part 1: The Balcony, at Battersea Arts Centre, 2026. Photo: Ewan Michael Riley
📸 Quarantine, Why I am and why I am not: Part 2: The Rooms, at Battersea Arts Centre, 2026. Photo: Ewan Michael Riley
📸 Mr and Mrs Black, speakers in Why I am and why I am not. Photo: Steve Reeves

02/04/2026

‘Quarantine’s recent takeover of Battersea Arts Centre ... peeled back the chaos of London to let people, stories, lives draw breath.’
– Maddy Costa, Exeunt Magazine

‘Quarantine’s work has always quietly and determinedly poked at essential questions: what are we all doing here? How do we spend our days?’ – Stevie Mackenzie-Smith, Battersea Arts Centre - BAC writing commission

‘gently absorbing, kind, respectful and real’ – Sara West, Everything Theatre

Both sprawling and intimate – with its many parts, forms and scales, our Battersea Arts Centre takeover A Public Address is difficult to sum up.

In March, BAC published a piece of writing by Stevie Mackenzie-Smith that sketches the shape of the work, its various components and how they were each connected and distinct.

🔗 Read online: https://bac.org.uk/reflections-on-a-public-address/

📸

1. Quarantine, Why I am and why I am not: Part 2: The Rooms, at Battersea Arts Centre, 2026. Photo: Ewan Michael Riley
2. Quarantine, 12 Last Songs, at Battersea Arts Centre, 2026. Photo: Ewan Michael Riley
3. Quarantine, Why I am and why I am not: Part 1: The Balcony, at Battersea Arts Centre, 2026. Photo: Ewan Michael Riley
4. Michael, part of Quarantine’s The people of Lavender Hill, 2026. Photo: Kate Daley

Address

Manchester
M322BZ

Website

https://www.qtine.com/home

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