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Way back in September 2009, I had packed up my life in Manchester and arrived in Leicester; bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to embark on the next stage of my glittering career in theatre. I'd harangued the MBD team for several weeks already, via email and over the phone, determined that they should give me a job (if not a restraining order).

Fast-forward a couple of weeks and I was in the office, learning all about the pyro-spectacular that Watch This Space were delivering for Bonfire Night at Lyveden New Bield, and trying to find a security company that could look after all our gunpowder. (I think Esther and Paul had taken pity on me and cancelled the restraining order.)

For the first 15 months with MBD, I worked only a few hours a week. It was unpaid, but gave me a taste of life with an independent and properly co-operative arts company for the first time. I'd come from three years administrating at a commercial theatre, separated from the creative process and rarely dealing with anything more innovative than Starlight Express. The team at MBD were doing all sorts of crazy-exciting stuff; collaborating with a traditional Chinese musician for a street arts rickshaw, building a maze full of TV screens, and working on music to soundtrack an audio tour of a battlefield. AN ACTUAL BATTLEFIELD. I'd basically found myself the coolest place to work EVER.

Since then…

They've given me a proper paid job.
I've worked on (I think) nineteen different projects, which have been staged everywhere from Stockton to Singapore.
We've reached somewhere in the region of 30,000 audience members, with thousands more participating in workshops and outreach programmes.
Two babies have been born (and our old Project Co-ordinator, Sally, will be adding another to the MBD Juniors line-up very soon).
Upwards of 20 tonnes of brie has been eaten during 'commie lunch'.

And I'm pretty sure that at least 10 tonnes of that was me. Quite an achievement.

The time has come, however, for me to tie up my knapsack once again and seek streets paved with G4A grants. Fare thee well, best of luck, and don't forget to tweet.

Meg. xxx.

After the success of FIB, MBD was approached by promoters from both the street arts sector and the visual arts sector to create work for their own arts environments. With this in mind MBD decided to leave their theatre roots behind, and embarked on an incredibly ambitious and pretty exhausting programme of work called THE FOUR SEASONS…

It started with SPRING in 2005 and has finally reached its epic finale in 2011 with the premiere of SUMMER and the staging of all 4 seasons in Lincoln during Frequency Festival. http://frequency.org.uk/

Looking back I'm reminded of so many memories. The all nighter before the premiere of SPRING as we tried to build our first outdoor installation on SAND! Pushing an Austin Sprite through the streets of Leicester at 6am before we squeezed it through the City Gallery doors with only millimetres to spare. The howling gales during the get out of Winter in Winchester, and the late nights, early starts and endless road works as we commuted to Lincoln on a daily basis to install SUMMER.

But with the blood sweat and tears (and there really were blood sweat and tears!) we've had so many wonderful moments. I'll never tire of the many children running around SPRING getting squirted by water and sticking their heads into beehives. I'll always remember the subtlety of AUTUMN and how it connected with the homeless in Leicester. Winter was when the Four Seasons really started to take shape and offered a through line and over arching narrative. With Winter my memories will always be of how it really touched people. It's quite a strange feeling to make people genuinely cry. SUMMER is a true testament to collaboration. Alongside MBD's artistic directors are a group of associate artists and freelancers who work with us to help deliver the vision. Summer would not have been possible without creative input from Steve Gibbs, Kate Unwin, Motion Design and Margaret Reeves.

There were times when I think we all wanted to throw in the towel, but standing in Lincoln after visiting all 4 installations, I felt incredibly proud. Yes we could have done things differently, after all a lot of the journey was about learning. And yes I would have loved just a little more time and money so that everything was perfect but the essence of The FOUR SEASONS is there. With some seasons you have to hunt a little harder, but Polly's life and her connection with the mysterious Gwyn Penn is now finally complete and, although WINTER concludes the series, SPRING follows straight on to start the cycle over again.

And the question we are left with back at MBD HQ is…… What now? All I can say is I'm sure the lessons we learned from FOUR SEASONS will never leave us completely As Mr Penn tells young Polly in one of their discussions, things come back in different ways "Like Caterpillars and Butterflies".

So its mid-May and we’ve started work on a new Watch This Space project called SHINE which involves 5 churches in Northamptonshire*. As ever I find myself amazed at the diversity of my job. The first church we visit, Holy Trinity in Rothwell, is the longest church (173 feet) in the county and I’m privileged to meet Dr. Peter Hill who (as well as being a fountain of Knowledge regarding historic churches in Northamptonshire) was also a founding member of Pentangle! I know…

The next person I meet is the Bailiff to the Lord of The Manor in Rothwell, whose job it is to collect the rent for the market and the annual Rowell Fair. This involves sitting on horseback at 6am, drinking rum and milk nine times as he reads the charter outside every public house in the town. I know…

Then we head over to Earls Barton where we sit and have a chat with the vicar’s husband and three lovely people from the village as we admire the unique Anglo-Saxon All Saints Church, complete with Henry Bird’s beautiful 15th century rood screen. I know…

Our final site visit of the day is over at Oundle and here we meet the incredibly energetic Reverend Richard Ormston who shows us around St. Peter’s Church, where schoolboys as late as the 1960’s would climb the 210 foot spire. The reverend also kindly pointed out the Tudor toilet which would flow straight onto the ground below. I know…

Just a regular day for the Watch This Space team.

Esther. x

* (Holy Trinity Church, Rothwell; All Saints Church, Earls Barton; St. Peter’s Church, Northampton; St. Peter’s Church, Oundle; and All Saints Church in Brixworth.)

I was last in Singapore in 1994 with a backpack on my back and my only real means of communication being post restante. Basically my family and friends would send letters to the main post office I’d be visiting and I’d pop off to collect the not so new news. I hear the young cries of disbelief what NO smart phones, NO email, NO facebook, NO Twitter. That’s right once a month I’d call home (from a payphone) and the rest was just LETTERS.

My 2011 trip was utterly different I video skyped my daughter and partner every single day and I had constant access to my email, but was it enough? OK I’m a new Mum and my daughter is only 9 months old and this was the first time I had left her ever!!! BUT I demanded that my partner skyped me every day. As I reflect on my two vastly different trips I’m starting to ask why we demand such instant communication and if the vast and varied communication methods on offer actually make us better partners, mothers and friends. Or are we just talking more frequently in bite sized amusing chunks?

People watching is always fascinating, especially in different cities, I spent quite a bit of time watching audience arrive at The Esplnade, and YES it was a regular sight to see a couple texting / tweeting as they walked hand in hand. But “The couple corner” was also alive and kicking where young couples would sit holding hands, heads tilted towards each other and of course the obligatory staring into each other’s eyes. These couples didn’t need to talk, tweet or text they were communicating like all new couples communicate, without words. So even in the high tech Singaporean world, the old fashioned communication of LOVE is still very much alive and kicking, even if they did meet through Facebook….

And here I am today sitting in the office the day after Valentines Day about to start work on Communication Breakdown and I can categorically state that LOVE is well and truly in the air at MBD towers. (Which is not terribly helpful when making Communication Breakdown!!!!). So as I try to ignore the loved up members of MBD I’m reminded of just how quickly things can change. YES Singapore has changed, YES communication has changed but we’ve also changed. One minute we’re making our loved ones home made presents and the next we’re filing for divorce. And on that depressing note I think I’m ready to start writing some text for Communication Breakdown.

So it’s the start of 2011 and Paul and I are tapping away at our computers writing the national portfolio application. Like so many other arts organisations out there and indeed most people who work in the public sector it’s a pretty scary time. In Leicester we’re desperately trying to save The City Gallery, libraries are closing and lunchtime discussions involve whether or not Leicester City Council should spend quite so much on flowers! It’s a pretty depressing world out there, which is why we need the arts NOW more than ever. Oh and maybe some flowers! There are so many reasons why the arts are important but just on a basic level it can make people smile and that’s good enough for me. And I have to say on the plus side of this economic farce, it’s given me the opportunity to really question why I’m an artist and what type of work I want to make. The majority of the projects we create are free to the public and take place on high streets and festivals where members of the public just stumble across our work. This fact has become increasingly important, there’s nothing quite like watching a group of young people stumble across our work, realise its FREE, participate and find out it’s FUN. The unexpected nature of our work has become increasingly important, we’re always trying to find new ways of offering the public an artistic experience. FIB is a huge game of musical chairs, Whispers from a Rickshaw takes place in a rickshaw and Communication Breakdown is a Treasure Hunt. Sometimes it feels like we’re trying to find new ways of disguising that what we’re actually making is in fact art and hey maybe that’s not such a bad thing, especially if it means more people take part. The year a head is incredibly uncertain for so many people and the arts that do survive have quite a responsibility. So as I read the doom and gloom headlines of more and more cuts I’ve decided to make a tiny promise to myself that when I see a member of the public having a jolly good time at an arts event (not just ours) that I will cling onto that moment as proof to myself of just why the arts are so (excuse my language) BLOODY IMPORTANT.