The Six Twenty

The Six Twenty Setting fire to what theatre can be. Bringing people together for a great night out. A pioneering theatre company based in Newcastle, UK.

We're a Live Theatre Associate Company. We make playful, imaginative and immersive theatre.

Somebody opened an old FANS folder recently and now we’ve emotionally spiralled into 2016 🫠We’ve been digging through so...
22/05/2026

Somebody opened an old FANS folder recently and now we’ve emotionally spiralled into 2016 🫠

We’ve been digging through some slightly chaotic folders labelled things like “FANS_FINAL_FINAL_v2”, and realised this year marks 10 years (TEN YEARS?!) since FANS first began 🤯

Not our very first show as The Six Twenty (shout out to Mixtape, Breakfast Hearts and Choirplay 💛), but definitely one of the early ones that really changed things for us.

Supported by the Bridging the Gap award from ARC Stockton Northern Stage Arts Centre Washington and Alnwick Playhouse back in 2016, FANS became our first ever Arts Council England funded show. It toured in 2016 and again in 2018, and ended up kick-starting so much of what came after.

So over the next few months we thought we’d start sharing a few bits from the vaults: old photos, DIY videos, music clips (including that infamous music mash-up) and some love for the brilliant people who helped make it all happen.

Some of our favourite moments are extremely blurry and taken at 1am leaning against a van outside a venue somewhere. Or rehearsing in a green room, corridor or broom cupboard.

There’s something strange and emotional about looking back at the beginnings of things. Tiny tour vans. Wristbands. Real and fake guitars. Half-built set pieces. Baby-faced versions of us figuring it out as we went along... although still with an impressive amount of beard-action for a bunch of twenty/thirty-somethings.

If you were part of the FANS journey in any way back then... audience, venue, band, volunteer, mate dragged along to a show... we’d love to hear your memories 💛

166 of you found us tonight 💛166 conversations, songs, memories, map pins, photo missions and tiny city details.Thank yo...
09/05/2026

166 of you found us tonight 💛

166 conversations, songs, memories, map pins, photo missions and tiny city details.

Thank you
Thank you
Thank you Newcastle

What a night.

What song sounds like Newcastle to you?A night-out anthem.A market tune.A song from the bus home.A track that reminds yo...
09/05/2026

What song sounds like Newcastle to you?

A night-out anthem.
A market tune.
A song from the bus home.
A track that reminds you of finding your people.

Something nostalgic, chaotic, romantic, wild, loud, calm, or properly yours.

We’re building an ever-growing playlist for Newcastle as part of You Are Here: NOVUM, our new audio trail for NOVUM Festival 2026.

TONIGHT, we’ll be at Grainger Market for Grainger Unplugged / The Late Shows, collecting songs, stories, favourite spots, scran memories and tiny details from the city.

Come and find us to:

🎧 listen in
🗺️ stick a place on the map
🎶 gift us a Newcastle banger
📸 take on our Newcastle After Dark photo mission

Drop your song below, or come and add it in person tonight.

The playlist starts here. More added live from Grainger Market.



Back on the train to Darlo today for some more creative writing time with the absolute megastar that is Lisette Auton as...
08/05/2026

Back on the train to Darlo today for some more creative writing time with the absolute megastar that is Lisette Auton as part of my Novo Theatre Talent mentoring.

Tiny joy of the morning: an actual paper train ticket. Very nostalgic. Very “don’t lose this or it’s all over.”

Brain slowly shifting into story mode.

Feeling super grateful for this bit of space to think, write, untangle ideas and follow the creative threads.

Now to see what words and magic appear✨

Yesterday ended up being one of those proper lush Newcastle days where everything seemed to connect together.We started ...
07/05/2026

Yesterday ended up being one of those proper lush Newcastle days where everything seemed to connect together.

We started the morning with Horts aka. The Culture Vulture, chatting all things The Late Shows, Newcastle and NOVUM Festival. Then headed to Men's Pie Club at Grainger Market as part of You Are Here: NOVUM 🥧

A brilliant community project where local men come together to make pies, eat together, chat and share stories. Which is exactly what You Are Here is all about.

This week’s pie?
Cauliflower cheese and bacon.
All made with ingredients sourced from traders at Grainger Market.

Important things we learned:
🥧 75g flour per pie (or one Gü dessert pot’s worth)
🧈 35g butter
🥛 3 or 4 milk-lid-fulls of milk

(yes, actual milk lids and Gü pots as measurements. Elite system.)

We also learned:
– everyone has very specific mash opinions
– Breakfast Pie is absolutely a thing
– people tell you the best stories while waiting for pastry to chill
– and Newcastle memories are never very far from the surface

While the pies cooked away in their very nifty pie machines, we chatted about favourite scran spots, Singing Hinnies hissing in the pan, ghost stories, The Mayfair, The Cooperage, old Newcastle nights out, places that have disappeared and the things that make Newcastle...Newcastle.

Then to round the day off, Steven and Craig headed over to The Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company to pick up some brilliant kit they’ve very kindly gifted us.

A day full of people sharing things.
Stories. Skills. Time. Equipment. Pie tips. Memories.

The kind of generosity and community spirit that sits underneath so much of this city. That’s what it’s all about really, isn't it?

Huge love to Men’s Pie Club for having us.

Men’s Pie Club at Grainger Market meets every Wednesday, 11.30am–1.30pm. There are pie clubs popping up all over Newcastle and the North East too, so do go check them out if you fancy giving it a go: https://menspieclub.co.uk/pie-clubs

You Are Here: NOVUM is part of NOVUM Summer Festival, landing across Newcastle city centre Friday 7 – Sunday 9 August.

Expect the unexpected. And be the first to hear what’s landing:
https://novumnewcastle.com

We’re part of The Late Shows for the very first time (eek!) and taking over a corner of Grainger Market for one night on...
27/04/2026

We’re part of The Late Shows for the very first time (eek!) and taking over a corner of Grainger Market for one night only 💛

“I always meet them by the…” 📍
That’s where the story starts.

📍 Grainger Market
🗓 Sat 9 May
🕕 6–10.30pm

We’ll be there gathering stories and sending people out into the night as part of You Are Here, our new project for NOVUM Festival this summer. A playable, living map of the city.

We’re looking for the bits of Newcastle that don’t show up on Google. Music memories, scran spots, market moments, late-night stories, favourite places and why they matter.

Come find us to:
📍 pin your story to the map
📸 head out on a late-night photo mission
✨ add your voice to You Are Here: NOVUM

We'll be right in the middle of Grainger Unplugged, where the market stays open late and everything shifts a bit.

Expect:
🎤 live music from North East artists with Generator
🎨 Bianco Perry’s 90s paint-your-scran workshop. And, yes, you can eat it too!
👾 Robin Webb’s stop-motion animation station
❤️‍🔥 Sally Southern + Nicola Lynch bringing bold print + collage
🌙 Green Croft On The Wall Moon Booth. Full drama photo moment.

Food, music, vintage finds, unexpected corners… we cannot wait 💛

Grainger Unplugged is produced by Creative Central NCL in partnership with Generator and NOVUM Summer Festival.

Creative Central NCL is funded by North East Combined Authority and Newcastle City Council

📸 Photos 2 + 3 by Von Fox Promotions from You Are Here: Sunderland created with Sunderland Youth Voice & Historic England

GIFT (Gateshead International Festival of Theatre) 💛One of those festivals that holds so much. A whole temporary world b...
21/04/2026

GIFT (Gateshead International Festival of Theatre) 💛

One of those festivals that holds so much. A whole temporary world built for a few days, then gone.

Artists trying things out. People gathering, sharing, seeing things together. A place for audiences to take risks, test ideas and chat.

To see and do things you might not usually see or do. To be a bit braver.

It’s for the bits before they’re finished, and for the incredible finished things.

International artists. Local artists. New collaborations across continents.

The kind of place where you’re welcomed in with a hand-stamped GIFT tag and leave having seen something unexpected.

Our team has lived in and around GIFT over the years.

Melanie’s been there producing, box office-ing, building websites, and letting people into Zoom calls during that strange, fuzzy time when everything moved online. Stamping show names onto GIFT tags and sweeping confetti.

Steven’s poured pints, box office’d, played Breakfast Club Jenga, looked after a polar bear (or two) and danced in glitter with Two Destination Language.

GIFT is full of extraordinary people with proper let’s-make-this-happen energy. And it’s one of our favourite things.

This year’s programme looks gorgeous, as always beautifully put together by Kate and the team.

Live performance, installations, workshops and food, all woven into that particular GIFT mix.

Maybe wander into something you don’t fully understand yet. That’s kind of the point.

Programme and tickets: www.giftfestival.co.uk

So excited to finally share this…We’re making something new for Newcastle this summer.A playable, living map of the city...
20/04/2026

So excited to finally share this…
We’re making something new for Newcastle this summer.

A playable, living map of the city.
Stories, sound, people, unexpected moments.

Come and get a little lost with us 🗺️ 🎧

Monday moments 🌸Newcastle showing off a bit today.A bit of pink.A bit of river.A bit of wandering about.Looking up. Foll...
13/04/2026

Monday moments 🌸

Newcastle showing off a bit today.

A bit of pink.
A bit of river.
A bit of wandering about.

Looking up. Following whatever catches our eye.

A little reminder to look up and around.
Sometimes that’s all you need.

We somehow ended up line dancing at Blackhall Community Centre 0191 5867396Our first ever class with the legend Alison a...
09/04/2026

We somehow ended up line dancing at Blackhall Community Centre 0191 5867396

Our first ever class with the legend Alison and within minutes we were fully in it. So welcoming. And a proper good laugh.

K steps, pigeon steps, rocking chairs… and of course the old 'slap and clap'.

Alison is an absolute force. Teacher, MC, community builder. And the t-u-n-e-s. Dolly, Shania… it was all going on.

We stayed for a chat afterwards and heard more about Alison Paterson line-dancing story. From first going along with her Mam to the centre years ago, to adventures in Nashville (and showing them how it's done), to running the centre and building something really special in Blackhall. Also: van life adventures thrown in for good measure 🚐inspo for the booth and some of its foldy bits!

We also got into ideas for the booth. Mobile phone jars, the teeniest line dancing disco in the world, and fast draw shoot-outs… like actual wild west style, but in Durham. Not sure we’ll get that one past health & safety but never say never.

And just look at that mug = Iconic.

We finished the morning off with a very windy walk down at Blackhall Rocks (wind: 1, us: 0) before heading back to Newcastle.

It’s people like Alison, and places like this, that are exactly why we’re making this project.

Line dancing, Thursdays 11am… it’s now firmly in the diary. See you next week 💛

Made possible with support from No More Nowt & Arts Council England

Portrait of Alison by Paul Cochrane (Portraits From The Street Museum) Check it out: https://www.streetmuseum.co.uk/projects/street-gallery

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Quayside
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1

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