Lancaster Dukes & Oldham Coliseum present The Life And Times Of Mitchell & Kenyon

Factory-gate film-makers Mitchell & Kenyon are the focus of a new play which is being staged at two North West theatres next month.

Lancaster’s Dukes and Oldham Coliseum theatres' latest co-production – The Life And Times Of Mitchell & Kenyon – is a celebration of the Lancashire film-making pioneers who showed audiences their world as they’d never seen it before and made cinema history along the way.

Playwright and screenwriter Daragh Carville brings Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon back to life to tell the story of a unique film-making partnership, whose collection of "local films for local people" is now regarded as a national treasure.

"Mitchell & Kenyon honoured the people they filmed and gave them a certain respect and dignity. I want this play to honour Mitchell & Kenyon in the same way," said Carville.

During the close of the Victorian period and into the Edwardian era, they set out from Blackburn and travelled widely, filming people as they left factories and enjoyed their leisure time. The films would then be shown at fairs, theatres and other venues, where people could spot themselves, their family and friends on the big screen.

After their heyday, Mitchell & Kenyon’s films were largely forgotten until they were rediscovered, sealed in metal churns in a photographer’s shop, in 1994. They were donated to the British Film Institute which together with the University of Sheffield’s National Fairground Archive, restored and researched the 800 camera negatives.

The Life And Times of Mitchell & Kenyon will be directed by Amy Leach. She is working with film projection specialists, imitating the dog, in combining theatre and film to tell this tale of the birth of modern cinema.

The play is at the Dukes, Lancaster from 19 April – 10 May and the Oldham Coliseum from 15 – 31 May.