The National Theatre of Scotland has been working with Culture NL and North Lanarkshire Council on Shift, an exciting large scale participatory arts project in North Lanarkshire. Over the course of six months, Shift has engaged with residents, local groups, families, colleges and organisations to tell their work stories. These will now be told in the final Shift performances.

Performed in the incredible setting of Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life, Shift is a dramatic, large scale, site specific, outdoor, theatrical event featuring original music and words from punters, poets, playwrights and pen-smiths from across North Lanarkshire.

With a cast of over a hundred Shift tells the stories of the many ‘shifts’ put in by the workers who built our world and created our future.

Shift is a visceral immersion into a world of work where our senses are stirred with the sights, sounds and smells of bygone eras, bright new futures and urgent new ideas hatching around us.

Told through, song, poetry and prose we meet the ordinary people and the extraordinary leaders who shaped and tested our society through hard graft. Mothers, Farmers, Soldiers, Nurses , Politicians, Steel Workers, Teachers, Thinkers, Designers, Scientists, Shop assistants and Factory Workers gather in one space to celebrate their past and step boldly in to an unknown future. Where will it take us, are we ready for the leap, have we traced our past enough to break the jump in to the future?

A heart thumping soundtrack with striking sound, light, video and design, Shift takes you on a journey that will enlighten you and dare you to put in a Shift, Shift the debate, Shift the possibilities, shift the perceptions, shift the attitudes and shift the focus we all have in life and work.

Start your shift now!

Produced by National Theatre of Scotland, CultureNL and North Lanarkshire Council, Supported by the National Lottery through Heritage Lottery Fund and Creative Scotland, and William Grant Foundation