A Glitch in the System

By allowing space for improvisation, ethical debate, and storytelling rooted in their own interests, the project mirrored the principles of inquiry-based and neurodiverse-affirming education. The teenagers weren’t passive recipients of a pre-decided heritage theme; they were active meaning-makers, articulating what their heritage looks like, often in contrast to the official narratives they felt excluded from.

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And heritage, for them, wasn’t just food or culture. It was about the future. It was the world they’re inheriting, the political systems they’ve grown up under, and their growing awareness of inequality. As one participant said in devising, “You tell us we are the future, but I’m not sure we’ve got one.” That line, born from a devising session, speaks volumes about their lived heritage: a generation raised in the shadow of austerity, digital surveillance, and climate emergency. Their drama became a space to interrogate these legacies, not with cynicism, but with creativity.

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Later, the idea of a post-apocalyptic world took hold. It resonated with the literature they loved and the anxiety they felt about technology, AI, and the loss of human connection. This setting provided the perfect frame to explore the disappearance of traditional knowledge. If robots took over the world, what would we lose first? 

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One girl spoke about how, if her grandmother passed, so would her roast potato recipe. As practitioners we noted this. Later on in the project, devising their drama scenes, they improvised a scene where they unearthed rice and yams hidden beneath floorboards - a memory of culture surviving after catastrophe. We asked them to think instead about who gave them their rice and yams recipes, reflect on the roast potato memory and their drama changed again and there was a recipe book under the floorboards.

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One girl imagined the robots stealing food traditions, erasing the rituals and recipes that had defined generations. It wasn’t just a dystopian vision—it was a profound reflection on the fragility of heritage in an automated world.

Through metaphor and play, they were considering what matters when preserving their emotional and culinary heritage, making sense of where they come from and what matters most.

Through the project, they explored the heritage of food, family, health, migration, and memory. They reflected on what they would preserve if everything else disappeared. They shared family dishes, talked about markets in other cultures, and critiqued the idea that British food had no identity beyond fish and chips or tea. They debated whether technology was killing traditions or transforming them. And they did it all through character, story, and scene.

Importantly, this kind of deep heritage engagement was only possible because the process was emotionally safe, flexible, and collaborative. The group was small, by design, which allowed for complex conversations to unfold without fear. Participants brought their full selves—messy, passionate, funny, vulnerable - and were held with care.

One girl returned to the group after being bullied out of school. She described the youth theatre as her 'core friendship group'. Another participant, neurodivergent and reluctant to perform, contributed through drawing. A quiet boy sat in the corner reading a book, only to deliver brilliantly timed lines in scenes as the voice of AI. These are not traditional drama outcomes - but they are powerful indicators of heritage engagement: every young person contributing in their own language, holding space for one another, and shaping a collective story about who they are and what they value.

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This approach, co-creation through drama, repositions heritage as something alive, evolving, and personal. It offers a model for heritage work that isn’t about learning facts but about building identity. As the young people imagined a world where their culture, recipes, and traditions had been erased, they also began to articulate what must be preserved, and why. Their campfire scenes became moments of remembrance. Their imagined AI takeover forced them to think about what they’d fight to keep. Their play became an archive of emotional truth.

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And this process didn’t just benefit them. As a facilitator, it also shifted the way heritage was approached. Rather than holding tight to a theme or structure, the project followed their lead. Instead of dictating what heritage should mean, it asked: What matters to you? What do you want to protect? What are you angry about? These questions created a new kind of engagement - one rooted in care, curiosity, and critical thinking.

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This is heritage learning at its most authentic. Not a list of outcomes, but a conversation. Not a performance, but a collective reckoning. And not a museum piece, but a living archive - held in the voices, stories, and imaginations of the young people who are shaping it.