Playtime for grown-ups
Plus helping students into engineering, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more
A Medway organisation is working to boost confidence and social opportunity for adults in Medway through the medium of creativity and improv. We’ve been finding out what it’s all about. Further down, we learn about scholarships from the Rochester Bridge Trust trying to help students find a career in engineering, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more.
Playtime for grown-ups
Medway Play Lab brings performing arts workshops and theatrical events to the people of the Medway towns. We spoke with co-founder Nic Lamont to find out more about the project…
Medway Play Lab is a Community Interest Company, meaning “everything we do has an angle where we want to create a social connection and benefit people in the Medway Towns.” As a non-profit, any revenue raised is returned to projects and training their team. “We focus on workshops for adults. This has primarily been improvisation workshops so far.”
They have also created theatrical events and different community projects that are all based on performing arts or theatre. “We did actually map out all of our participants once, and we were bringing people in from all over Medway.”
The company was launched in 2022 by Nic and Kate Mechedou, who met at a Funny Women event. “Funny Women is a brilliant national and now international company that supports women and female-identifying people that want to do comedy”. The founder of Funny Women, Lynne Parker, lives in Rochester and held an event at Store 104. Nic and Kate “started chatting about improv and how there wasn't anything like that happening” in Medway. They realised they had a lot of similarities and professional experience that matched up. “We started talking about creating a company, and that's what we did.”
Nic and Kate have both worked professionally as actors, with Kate also working extensively in the world of “historical interpretation.” “We both live in Medway and we're both mums, we feel we connect in a lot of different ways and can understand each other in a lot of different ways.”
Nic acknowledges she has a lot going on, as she predominantly works as an actor, where she has a non-speaking role in the new Thursday Murder Club film that just released on Netflix. She is also a comedy performer and a Medway producer and mentor for Funny Women. She also runs a project called The Glitter Project, a monthly hub and open mic night for women in Kent to come and try out comedy and network.
Medway Play Lab's first project was ‘The Grown-Up Games.’ This was in 2022, when they had received “a little bit of funding” to go into Luton Primary School during the summer holidays. Activities were going on for the children, “but there was really nothing for the parents.” They decided to offer confidence and creativity workshops for the parents. “It was interesting, and the feedback was it was nice for them to have a bit of social and creative release as well.” That culminated in “quite a funny performance where we switched the roles, the adults were playing children, and the children had to control these wild and creative souls. It was a fun thing to switch that on its head.”
At the time of speaking, Medway Play Lab was running an introduction to improv course, which ran every Monday for six sessions at Store 104, and they hope to run again in the future. “It teaches the basic foundations of improvisation and builds on each session.” This includes building characters, creating scenes, working on two-person scenes, working on group scenes, and then working at the end on whole scenes, putting everything together.
Are there rules to improv other than saying, ‘Yes, and?’ It turns out there are. “We go into a lot of the lesser-known things.” For Nic, it is about bringing out people's confidence and making the room feel safe. “I think sometimes when people hear improv, they think that that could be a really scary thing.” Nic likes to tell people, “Firstly, don't worry about being funny,” advising them not to be thinking, “I've got to do jokes, and I've got to do puns.” Nic tells me it will be funny because whatever comes out in the moment is funny enough on its own. There are lots of rules about working with other people. “I say to people, try and make your scene partner look good and they'll try and make you look good.” By serving the scene, rather than worrying about what you're doing, “the whole scene is harmonious.”
As well as these classes for beginners, they also run regular sessions called ‘Improv Jam,’ for people with more improvisation experience. “If you've dabbled before, then you can come. We have opportunities for fun games and exercises, both short form and long form.” These are also run on Monday nights with details on Medway Fun Lab’s social media. The classes cost £8 for each session, with snacks and drinks provided. “We have a lovely time in the bookshop improvising together.” Afterwards, participants often decamp to the pub and continue to talk to each other. “I can never go because I've got kids, but one day I'll make it there.”
The sessions are attended by a wide age range, from people in their 20s to someone in their 70s. They are currently developing a project that looks at the history of the building which houses Store 104 and Medway Play Lab. “The store was part of the Leonard's department store and has a huge history.” Originally opened in the 1880s, you can still see original tiles in the store window. The store continued until 1969 when it was turned into a shoe shop. “There was this whole huge department store on Rochester High Street that not many people nowadays have thought about in a long time.”
What Medway Play Lab would like to do is collect memories. “If anyone has any photographs, we're collecting stories about that building with the aim of creating a theatrical event around the memories of this place.” Nic hopes they will uncover and preserve the history of “this huge institution that was part of Rochester High Street.” They plan to work with their improvisers to take these memories and create a theatrical experience. It is a big project that is under construction, but “hopefully coming soon.” If you have any stories or pictures of the store, Medway Play Lab would love to hear from you.
Medway has a history of a wide variety of art forms, including printing, painting, and music, but it doesn’t have a reputation for comedy. Nic isn’t entirely sure why, other than maybe a proximity to London, “where I suppose, traditionally, if people wanted to, they could go in and see some comedy in town.” Nic thinks times are changing, and people want to do things more locally. “People want to support local talent and get involved and try things out for themselves locally as well.” Between the work of Medway Play Lab and Funny Women, comedy is being made more accessible for local people, creating safe spaces for people to try things, “to just get up and give it a go. I think we do need more comedy nights that are inclusive and accessible, and for everybody. I think that would be a good thing.”
In brief
🛍️ Rochester City Artisan Market is to cease trading after being told they might have to pay tax. The final market will take place tomorrow, followed by, er, two more markets in November.
💫 Despite an arson attack earlier this week, Get Ready Comics in Rochester has already reopened.
🎭 Rehearsals have started for this year’s celebrity Central Theatre pantomime. This year, the cast includes the guy from Steps, but not the one you’re thinking of.
🛟 The Mirror got very excited about the Strand Lido this week.
Building bridges and bursaries
In the third of our short series on the Rochester Bridge Trust, we took a look at the scholarships they fund…
As part of the trust’s declared focus on private means for public benefit, the first scholarship programmes were launched around 16 years ago. The aim was to inspire younger people to pursue a career in engineering, as research had shown that civil engineering in particular was hard for many to understand or engage with. The trust wanted to help open those doors.
The first scholarships came through a partnership with the Smallpeice Trust, offering the Arkwright Scholarship. Arkwright was an engineer, and the scholarship is effectively a two-year programme for sixth form students taking relevant subjects, hoping it might encourage them to progress to undergraduate engineering degrees. Every other year, a number of Arkwright students are taken on, with applications run through the Smallpeice Trust, who organise interviews and screening from accredited schools, linking potential scholars with people in the industry.
Trustees later decided they wanted their own scheme, funding a scholarship that provides money directly to individual students and their schools. This helped support both the student’s studies and wider STEM teaching within the school.
The results have been strong. Around 75% of students have gone on to study a degree in an engineering-related subject. However, trustees noticed that Arkwright schools tended to be selective, often grammar or independent schools with keen STEM teachers. Wanting to widen access, they created the Harriott Scholarship, named after long-serving trustee Paul Harriott. Explicitly targeted at non-selective schools in Medway and Kent, the first award went last year to a pupil from St John Fisher School.
At the same time, the Telford Scholarship was introduced to support selective schools not covered by the Arkwright programme. Four awards were made in its first year, to pupils from Rochester Girls’, Rainham Mark, Rochester Math, and Dane Court.
Additionally, the trust organises behind-the-scenes tours to sites such as Tower Bridge, the Thames Barrier, and their own bridges at Rochester. These trips give students a chance to see major engineering projects up close and to meet others with similar interests, often alongside mentoring opportunities for those considering undergraduate study.
The trust also funds the Spence Agricultural Scholarship, created in 2018 and named after trustee John Spence. Working with seven universities that specialise in agriculture, it provides a £5,000 per year bursary for students on agriculture-related degrees. Recipients have used the money to pay for extra training such as tractor driving or spraying courses, helping them gain practical experience alongside their studies.
Sixteen years on, the trust’s scholarships have grown from a single partnership into a range of schemes that now cover engineering and agriculture, selective and non-selective schools, and students from across Kent and Medway. For a trust rooted in medieval bridges, it’s not a bad way of preparing for the next century.
Events this week
🎉 Sat 30 Aug - Sticks ‘n’ Stones Festival // Day of music, performance, workshops, and wellbeing activities. University of Greenwich, Chatham. Free.
🛍️ Sat 30 Aug - Rochester City Artisan Market // Stalls selling crafts, jewellery, gifts, art, and more. Rochester High Street. Free.
☂️ Thu 4 Sep - Medway Neuro-Tech 25 // Stalls, demonstrations, and talks on how technology can help those with neurological conditions. Pilkington Building, Universities at Medway, Chatham. Free.
More Authority
Each month, we publish a guest column from one of Medway’s elected representatives, rotating between our MPs, council and opposition leaders, and the Police and Crime Commissioner. Yesterday, we welcomed Gillingham and Rainham MP Naushabah Khan, who talked about flags, the challenges facing the constituency, and work to regenerate town centres.
Voice of the MP - Gillingham and Rainham
Editor’s note: Each month, we publish a guest column from one of Medway’s elected representatives, rotating between our MPs, council and opposition leaders, and the Police and Crime Commissioner. Today, we welcome Gillingham and Rainham MP Naushabah Khan, who talks about flags, the challenges facing the constituency, and work to regenerate town centres.
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