Apples and Snakes

Hey 🙂

It’s that time of year when we do a ‘quick’ round-up of all things Apples!! 

Big news for 2025 saw us going back to our roots and reclaiming the idea of performance poetry being what we are all about. Exciting times ahead!

As ever, we delivered loads of amazing work with a brilliant range of partner organisations and fabulous poets, with work happening everywhere from Bristol to Birmingham to Bradford. We worked in schools, libraries, at festivals, venues big and small, online and from a converted horsebox (Ivy).

Supporting and developing performance poets across the country is at the heart of what we do. For example, this year Associate Artistic Director Ty’rone worked with Coventry based poets and Belgrade Theatre on Playing Poetry.

“Playing Poetry is a talent development project all about exploration and play in performance poetry; how to make poetry pop and come alive on stage. This year saw ​​four emerging performance poets from Coventry work with four nationally established performance poets over the course of four weekends. The focus was on performance techniques, stage craft, movement, voice work, embodiment of the work etc. The poets worked with Miss Yankey, Jasmine Gardosi, Bradley Taylor and John Bernard. Resulting in a showcase to a sold out audience at Coventry Belgrade Theatre’s ‘See It First Festival’”

In 2025 we also delivered:

  • Words A Stage 2.0 for early career poets, a series of online workshops and a week-long residential at Arvon
  • Artists’ Retreats, bringing poets together to recharge, build connections and develop skills
  • Scratch Lab with early-career poets in South London experimenting with group performances
  • Online workshops to push craft and build community
  • Enfield Young Producers – a Poet in The City programme upskilling the next generation of producers

…and supported UniSlam and Gobs Collective in Nottingham with their artist development programmes.

We launched ON:LINE our new winter masterclass series which runs until Feb 2026, still time to join: Book here!

Our podcast went visual! You can watch it here via our Youtube channel and we continued our partnership with the students at Elstree Screen Arts with more Blackbox.

We were delighted to be a partner with the Wandsworth, London Borough of Culture programme delivering a project in 10 primary schools to 300 Year 5 children as well as another 1200 children and teachers who attended. Our live SPIN performances were also part of the Schools Poetry Festival.

WORDCRAFT, our poet-in-residence programme in Ealing, came to a close – with teachers, children and poets all saying what a great project it had been.

“It was kind of magical, that memory is going to last my whole lifetime” – Year 6 Participant, Dairy Meadow Primary School, Southall

Libraries continued to be one of our favourite places to hang out. Our Saturday morning programme Telling Tales taking place as part of our Libraries Out Loud programme supported by John Lyons Charity.  In August, our Library Takeover project saw young people devise and produce an event with Brent Library Services.

Image of a man with shorts a shirt and a backwards cap standing on stage with his arm raised

We said a fond farewell to PLOT17, our hip-hop eco-show for children, which came to an end in 2025. For over 4 years it was on the road, delivering 77 shows in 12 locations, reaching over 7000 children and families. Ivy, our converted horsebox van is now off to new adventures!

And finally, keep a lookout for our announcement about our legendary night Jawdance, which, after 15 years at Rich Mix, is heading to a new home in Spring 2026!!  

I’ll end with a heartfelt thanks to all our funders and partner organisations:

ACE, John Lyons Charity, The Fenton Arts Trust, London Borough Of Wandsworth, London Boroughs of Wandsworth, Camden, Ealing, Brent, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster & Harrow, Arvon, Rich Mix,  Belgrade Theatre, Mason & Fifth, Lyra Festival, Gobs Collective, Unislam, Young Identity, Birmingham City University, Ealing Learning Partnership, Lewisham Looked After Children Services, Stanley Arts, The Albany, Elstree Screen Arts, Fire and Dust and the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival.

And extra thanks and love to:

  • All the amazing poets that we have the privilege to work with 
  • Our fabulous trustees who give up their time and expertise to support the organisation so brilliantly
  • Binita, Annie & Secoura @ The Space inBetween 
  • Ahmed & Anthony @ D237 
  • The Apples and Snakes team: Ben, Daniela, Iman, Janet, Marcelle, Mark, Natalie, Rob, Robert, Russell, Sarah, Ty’rone & Yelena for being awesome 

With love,

Lisa