Hull company to reopen a pioneering recycled Play Space at London’s Southbank Centre

In 2023, Hull-based company The Herd were commissioned by the Southbank Centre to create REPLAY, a pioneering play installation for families, made entirely out of recycled and reused materials.

Photo: Arnaud Mbaki

After rave reviews, huge popular demand and two extensions, REPLAY returns to the Southbank Centre this January for five months before transferring to Bradford UK City of Culture 2025 in the autumn.

In the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames, the critically acclaimed Hull-based company will reopen this glorious celebration of play. Artist Sam Caseley said: “As artists from Hull, we’re thrilled to bring our work back to this international platform. The Southbank Centre hosts the biggest artists, musicians and writers in the world. We’re proud to be showing what we can do alongside them.” 

Part adventure playground, part installation, REPLAY encourages children and grown-ups to play side-by-side – building, making, imagining, dressing up, creating, designing, inventing and much more. 

With a design that ignites imaginations, a score composed from recycled sounds and a unique crowdsourced play generator providing ideas for play, REPLAY is a celebration of play and highlights the importance of dedicated playful spaces for children and their grown-ups. 

Artist Ruby Thompson said: “we’re putting children and their families’ imagination at the centre of the experience. Anything can happen. We made this project with children at Endike Primary in Hull and families in London, and know how important these child-led spaces are for families.” 

Every part of the installation has been built from materials that would otherwise go in the bin or sit in storage for years. Materials have been saved from theatres, events, exhibitions and factories.

Artist Rūta Irbīte said:”‘The process of creating the space has been about seeing what waste there is out there, then incorporating it into the design. It’s a completely new way of creating a design – of adaptation rather than making new.”

REPLAY hopes to inspire adults to reassess what our idea of waste is, as well as what can be defined as a ‘toy’. 

Here is what visitors to REPLAY said last time:

‘Just one of the best things we’ve been to this year!’ Write Sparks, Instagram

‘‘If there’s only one place you visit in London this summer then make sure it’s REPLAY’  @thelondonkids

‘Colourful, vibrant and exciting. I’m absolutely wowed.’ Coin Street Nursery

The project is a collaboration between Theatre Director Ruby Thompson (SLIME, Southbank Centre), Theatre Designer Rūta Irbīte (A Raisin in the Sun, Leeds Playhouse) and Writer and Composer Sam Caseley (Ducklings, Royal Exchange). 

Royal Festival Hall, the Southbank Centre, London, 21 Jan – 1 Jun 2025, 10.30am – 4.30pm

Created by Theatre Director Ruby Thompson, Designer Rūta Irbīte and Writer and Composer Sam Caseley.

@theherduk @southbankcentre| #REPLAY | www.theherdtheatre.co.uk/replay www.southbankcentre.co.uk