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Safetycatch Theatre is a Manchester (UK) based Outdoor Arts company specialising in Street Theatre. Safetycatch Theatre is on a mission – to connect diverse audiences through spectacular open heart comedy. We believe that laughing together is as good a cure all and collective bonding mechanism as there is. Laughter builds bonds, creates connection, drops boundaries and builds bridges. We aim to integrate unlikely audiences, creating new companionship and forging interplay for ‘outsiders’, with an outreach focus on community mental health.

Safetycatch Theatre is about building connection, helping people connect with themselves, with each other, and within their communities. If we believe in anything, it is in the astounding power of outdoor arts interactions, events and performances to deeply reach audiences other art forms simply do not touch. Outdoor Arts are democratic, by their very nature. They are mostly free at the point of delivery – audiences vote with their feet. The live nature of the relationship between performer and audience and the hugely dynamic interactions possible in improvised moments are what make it so unique. We aspire to creating interplay between ‘outsiders’ – using outdoor arts to connect people who do not feel they belong, and that there is no space for them.

Garth began touring for street theatre companies while still at drama school, where one of his tutors, James Macpherson of Artizani, hired him for a couple of jobs. He went on to tour for Avanti Display as The Spurting Man in 2002 while still a student, even writing the experience into his dissertation.

Garth was training to be an actor, and loved theatre, but touring the street theatre / outdoor arts scene with the privilege of touring with the highly experienced Bill Palmer from Avanti Display was a real eye opener. The Outdoor Arts scene was electric, imaginative, fun and subversive – with artists from all sorts of backgrounds from live art to engineering, stand up comedy and dance. He was hooked. Several years later in 2009 he started MariachoO! with Chris Davies. Then while touring with Artizani, The Whalley Range All Stars and Ramshacklicious began developing Watch the Birdie, and then Doctor! Doctor!!