Byker Audio Stories

'Byker isn't one thing. It's as complicated as you

Picture it as a person.

It's heaving, breathing heating system regulating its temperature.'

Our eighth audio story 'NE6' invites us to imagine what Byker is, what it could be, and what you want it to be.

'NE6'

Co-Created with our communities in Byker

Written by Lee Mattinson

Read and Performed by Harrison Rowley-Lynn and Naomi Baker

Music & Sound by Mark Melville

Directed & Co-Created with Louie Ingham

"Picture yourself from afar

From space

From the boiling lakes of lava on Jupiter’s moon

From the tip of the grip of the handle of the plough

Picture this place from afar..."

Our seventh audio story is 'Bonnie Bristling Byker'.  Abdul-Aziz Kouamé talks about Byker's physical force field - Byker Wall. Designed to keep us out and keep them in. But is there a way to go beyond the wall? To reach. To ask. To hope.

'Bonnie Bristling Byker'

Co-created and Read by Abdul-Aziz Kouamé 

Abdul-Aziz Kouamé

Written by Lee Mattinson

Music & Sound by Mark Melville

Directed & Co-Created with Louie Ingham

'If you could be anywhere in the world, Wambui, where'd you want to be?

It's right here, isn't it?

It actually really is. Right here.'

Our sixth audio story 'Right Here' sees narrator Wambui Hardcastle gives you a chord in her life to listen to, as she relives her amazing time on Cheviot Mount listening to the Doorstep Music Band, or 'Wave Your Hands In The Air and Stand Over There' as they prefer to be known.

Co-Created with our communities in Byker

'Right Here' 

Written and Performed by Wambui Hardcastle.

Music & Sound by Mark Melville

Directed & Co-Created with Louie Ingham

'It's not even funny. Literally.

See this phone? It's going in the bin.

Don't care.

I'm mortified.'

Our fifth audio story 'Juice Box, Jupiter, Kite' sees narrator Brandin McCaffery turn into Vera when he gets a text message from a total stranger and decides to launch an investigation into who this mystery person could be.

Co-Created with our communities in Byker

'Juice Box, Jupiter, Kite'

Written by Lee Mattinson

Performed by Brandin McCafferty

Music & Sound by Mark Melville

Directed & Co-Created with Louie Ingham

'Have you ever heard of Okeanos?

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in a river almost as special as ours. Earth and circling and backward flowing. 

This mythical stream sprung all of the constellations - the sun and the stars, the moon and its majesty out from itself every morning before they were to set back into its waters. 

Our Tyne’s a bit like Okeanos....'

Our fourth audio story sees narrator Elizabeth Doyle reimagine Newcastle & Gateshead through the lens of Greek Mythology. The leaping dragon Millenium Bridge, the yellow serpent Metro line, and gladiatorial battles over chippy tea, and 'The Gods of Byker'.

Co-Created with our communities in Byker

'The Gods of Byker' written, read and performed by Elizabeth Doyle

Music & Sound by Mark Melville

Directed & Co-Created with Louie Ingham

'I suppose it all started when the spark went out of Uncle Danny.

You know Danny. He runs the bingo down the club.

Walks up and down Raby Street selling books of tickets for it.

And come seven o’clock each and every Saturday there he is...hollering numbers at giddy nanas.'

Our third audio story is 'Byker Bingo' - narrator Sammie Clarke takes bingo to the streets of Byker as she tries to renew the spark of local legend Uncle Danny.

Co-Created with our communities in Byker

'Byker Bingo' Read & Performed by Sammie Clarke

Written by Lee Mattinson

Music & Sound by Mark Melville

Directed & Co-Created with Louie Ingham

It’s my time, it’s me time, a boy in a tree

Watch quick city foxes watch bins and then me

Imagining things that this one tree could be

If it dreams of being taller or rootless or free...'

Adrian Atkinson imagines a life beyond the Byker Wall, of escaping to glitz and glamour, of being rootless or free.

Co-Created with our communities in Byker

'North Star' Read & Performed by Adrian Atkinson

Written by Lee Mattinson

Music & Sound by Mark Melville

Directed & Co-Created with Louie Ingham

'High on a hill once striped with dense terraces...

Due east of a city built on ships and coal...

One region south of where Northern Lights dance...

And ten miles west of the deep North Sea...

Byker lives.  NE6.  The Wall.'

Northern Stage Young Company ‘The Team’ have co-created eight brand new audio experiences for Byker and beyond.

The words were inspired or spoken by the people of the Byker Wall estate in Newcastle, and each piece is a world premiere of new people and new ideas.

They are a mixture of fictions based on fact, and of real words spoken.

These eight short audio experiences require you to simply listen.

They were originally designed to be enjoyed in a series of specific locations across the estate, but in the absence of those streets, terraces and amphitheatres can be listened to wherever you choose.

Feel free to rewind, re-listen and re-share these stories about the brightly coloured streets of Byker.

Thank you for sharing this time with us.

Co-Created with our communities in Byker

'Welcome To Byker' Read & Performed by Harrison Rowley-Lynn

Written by Lee Mattinson

Music & Sound by Mark Melville

Directed & Co-Created with Louie Ingham