Your support could be
helping us to:

Make special
musical instruments
for disabled people

Run year round
music workshops
for mental health care
service users

Run accredited education
programmes in prisons
and with young people
at risk

Work With Us

Internship Programme

The Network
for people interested in
the development of
socially inclusive arts

Escape Artists

The City Wakes is produced by UK-registered arts and mental health charity, and professional production house, Escape Artists.

Founded in 1996, Escape Artists works to improve quality of life, health and social welfare, by recognising the vital importance of creativity to an individual’s well-being.

The delivery of nationally recognised educational programmes – such as OCN courses in Music and Literature, Music and Maths and Pre-employment Training - forms a major part of Escape Artists’ work. The courses support clients in their efforts to rejoin mainstream society, helping to build confidence, as well as developing creative expertise and transferable skills in areas such a communication and teamwork.

Escape Artists’ regular client groups include mental health care service users, people in hospice care, homeless people, prisoners, ex-offenders, young offenders and young people at risk.

Escape Artists’ professional productions – including The City Wakes - serve both to raise awareness of arts in mental health, and to fundraise for the charity’s core activities. They also provide clients with invaluable work experience. Previous projects have covered a range of art forms and have received considerable critical acclaim. Examples include:

• In 2003, Escape Artists’ film Monster won the Big Issue Audience Choice Award.
• In 2004, Escape Artists ran a series of workshops in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The workshops culminated in a performance of Love and Marriage, a community production based on Shakespeare’s The Two Gentleman of Verona.
• In 2005, Escape Artists sold out King’s College Chapel with its much-praised production Adoreus: A Cambridge Cantata.

To support Escape Artists’ work by making a donation to The Syd Barrett Trust, please click here.