Baked Bean Company Interview

Baked Bean Company is a performing arts company for adults with learning disabilities

Bean Street, 17 June 2022, 3.00pm — 6.00pm
Battersea High Street

“The Baked Bean Company has been based in Wandsworth for 25 years. We’re a performing arts company who work with adults with learning disabilities. Throughout the year, we run a huge number of classes and groups, including our youth theatre on a Sunday. A lot of the theatre we create is verbatim theatre or political theatre, plus a fair amount of improv. We use that as the basis for creating workshops, performances, film and training programmes which educate, entertain and inspire the community around us.

This year at the Wandsworth Arts Fringe, we’ll be painting the town orange with our ‘Bean Street’ street party. Everyone is welcome to come along and see musical theatre performances, dance performances and – as a highlight – The Baked Bean Choir performing live. The group will be giving partygoers a sneak preview of their new EP, which they’ve created in collaboration with Riverside Radio. One of the choir’s specialities is taking a classic pop song and filling it out with some beautiful harmonies, but this record also includes some original new material such as London’s Ours, a song about reclaiming the city for people with learning disabilities.

You’ll also be able to buy tie-dyed t-shirts from our merch stand and find out more about the work the Baked Bean Company does throughout the year. We’re always looking to show the local community in Wandsworth that the Baked Bean Company is not a day care facility. It is a performing arts company made up of fearlessly talented performers in all disciplines – dance, theatre, music and more. We take on students from across London but at least one third of our in-take comes from Wandsworth itself. We’ve recently been working closely with the Old Vic Theatre in Waterloo on one of their community projects but what feels most exciting is getting to perform live to an audience again after lockdown. There’s really only so much theatre you can make on Zoom and our students really revel in being back performing live at events like the Wandsworth Arts Fringe.”

- Hannah and Charlotte of the Baked Bean Company.
Twitter: @BakedBeanCo. Insta: @bakedbeancompany