Life in a Goldfish Bowl - Launch Event

A Tamasha Production commissioned for the AHRC BBC 100 project Cultural Revolution? The BBC and Social Change in 1960s Britain.

By the end of the century - about 1 in 3 people in the U.K. will be mixed-heritage. Have you ever thought about what their parents’ experiences were? What about those of their grandparents? What were the stories of mixed relationships from the 1940s to the 1980s? How did the BBC feature them? Life in a Goldfish Bowl is an artistic response to the BBC archives from this era.

As part of the BBC cultural revolution project (which reassesses the BBC and social change), Life in a Goldfish Bowl is an interactive mixed-media installation fusing audio-dramas, video and texts to invite you to consider what could be our future by experiencing the complexities of our past. This installation will be exhibited within the Liverpool Everyman theatre from 28 January until 21 February 2023.

Be part of the launch night at 7pm on Saturday 28 January, where we’ll premiere the short film, audio plays, artwork and edited original archive material from the BBC, followed by a Q&A session with the writer and members of creative team.
Click here to register for your free seat at the event.

This is one of several projects marking the BBC’s 100th birthday, funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council, exploring the BBC’s relationship with British culture and society.

About the Creator and Writer, JC Niala

JC Niala is a playwright, nature writer and poet. Her plays include THE STRONG ROOM, 2010 (shortlisted for BBC Africa Performance) and UNSETTLED, 2019 (Methuen, Bloomsbury) which was published in the second ever collection of plays by African women. Her award-winning play OUT OF BOUNDS, 2021 was written as part of the Oxford Playhouse Playmakers Scheme 2020-2021. Her films include SOMETHING NECESSARY, 2013 (prod. Tom Tykwer) and WAZI? FM, 2015 (Best Picture Zanzibar International Film Festival). Her debut non-fiction book A LOVELINESS OF LADYBIRDS was shortlisted for Canongate’s Nan Shepherd Prize in 2019 and will be published by Little Toller Books in 2022. An extract from the book, Fieldnotes from an African Anthropologist was awarded the Frank Allen Bullock Creative Writing Prize 2020 by St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford.

Creative team

Creator and Writer - JC Niala
Installation Designer - Sam Skinner
Director of Audio and Visual Dramas - Natalya Martin 
Director of Photography and Editor - Nye Williams
Sound Designer - Jarek Zaba
Producer – Debo Adebayo (Tamasha)
Audio and Visual Dramas Cast - Ricky Fearon, Rob Jarvis, Elizabeth Ellis

Some of the historical archives featured contains outdated material which may offend. If you have any questions or comments, please contact [email protected].