{"id":589329,"date":"2026-05-17T17:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/589329\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T17:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:59:13","slug":"mckellen-says-hordens-ensemble-84-is-bringing-change-and-renewal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/589329\/","title":{"rendered":"McKellen says Horden&#8217;s Ensemble 84 is bringing change and renewal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Keith Irons, 63, from Darlington, joined after decades working in the print trade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;At the time I was driving a minibus because I needed to earn some money and someone sent me a link for the auditions,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;With Ensemble 84 I got six months training and I earned a wage.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The theatre company is funded through Durham County Council, Arts Council England and the UK Government&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-prospectus\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shared Prosperity Fund., external<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Its name is a nod to the 1984 miners&#8217; strike, a defining moment in the history of British coal mining.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The closure three years later of Horden Colliery, once one of the largest in Britain,  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cm2136jnjx1o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">precipitated the area&#8217;s decline<\/a> into one of high unemployment where child poverty is twice the national average.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keith Irons, 63, from Darlington, joined after decades working in the print trade. &#8220;At the time I was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-589329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}