Age on the Stage:Staging Age Through Creative Encounter in Telescope by Quarantine

This booklet showcases the value of using creative, participatory approaches to better understand ageing and difference. By observing and sharing a series of staged encounters by the theatre company Quarantine in one strand of their performance The Questions – called Telescope – it aims to encourage theatre makers, practitioners, academics, and researchers to consider how artistic methods can open new ways of seeing, feeling, and thinking about these themes. The material shared is drawn from research conducted by Dr Amy Barron, Lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Manchester. Over six months (July–December 2025), Amy set out to explore (i) how the role and position of age, as a central lens in the design of Telescope, evolved; (ii) how encounters were staged within the performance space; and (iii) the types of interactions that were facilitated. Amy conducted ethnographic observation through attending development meetings with Quarantine, observing the research and development phase of Telescope at Contact theatre, and later observing the performance when Telescope was presented at Manchester Museum. Interviews were conducted with participants, or ‘lenders’, of different ages, inviting them to reflect on their experiences, as well as with members of the Quarantine creative team who devised the performance.