Meet the man behind Newcastle's big domino run
A summer festival highlight
A giant domino run through Newcastle city centre is planned as the grand finale of this year’s NOVUM Summer Festival, taking place from August 7 to 9.
What a beautifully simple idea!
Then again, it also sounds like something Buster Keaton or one of the other masters of silent slapstick would have revelled in.
Knock one down and they’ll all follow. What could possibly go wrong?
Julian Maynard Smith, the man behind Dominoes, is quick to quash the suggestion that the artwork resulted from an accident, happy or otherwise.
No, he says. Station House Opera (SHO), the performance art and theatre company he set up in 1980, had been using breezeblocks long before the first Dominoes performance in London in 2009.
“We’d been using them in performances since 1985, I believe… throwing them around, catching them and building with them.
“We were aware of their domino capability but we used them first in single locations, building structures.”
Then came the big moment – a competition for an event to link the five London boroughs that would host the 2012 Olympic Games.
“It was part of the Cultural Olympiad process,” recalls Julian.
“Knowing that these breezeblocks did behave like dominoes we thought it’d be nice to do a piece linking the boroughs in that way.
“It was an ambitious undertaking because we were talking about a run that was potentially 18 kilometres long.
“Of course, that was way out of our budget but we got the ball rolling, as it were, and ended up doing something in each of the boroughs and making a bit of film to link them up.
“We filmed a boat taking one of the blocks to Greenwich.”
Following that success, Dominoes became a SHO favourite around the world, being enacted annually in one, two or even three different cities.
In 2024 there were Dominoes runs in Toronto and the Polish city of Poznań. The last UK performance listed on the company website was in Newbury in 2022 and next after Newcastle will be Tilburg in Holland.
This, though, will be the first time in the North East… where, of course, dominoes was once a staple game in many a pub.
The breezeblocks have been ordered, says Julian, about 8,000 of them to be set roughly 40 centimetres apart, and a small army of 300 volunteers is being recruited by Newcastle City Council.
“Creating a celebration across the whole city, Dominoes transforms its rhythm for one special day,” is how the SHO website explains the work’s particular appeal.
“The project has the power to bring communities together through participation and engagement.”
Julian has seen this spirit stirred many times by Dominoes but he says it surprised him initially.
“When we first did it I had no expectation of how people would respond but the people building it really enjoying doing it and the audience just went wow!
“And it’s such a simple thing. Every time we’ve done it people have enjoyed the process and the spectacle.”
Julian’s unique career path began with him studying architecture at university but then switching to fine art. That led to the tricky participatory projects in which SHO specialises.
He explains: “As an architecturally minded person I’m interested in space and the physical environment, and how you can make things that haven’t existed before by using materials in a different way.
“I do enjoy attempting something difficult. I’m drawn to difficult things.”
You can say that again.
Last time Julian was in Newcastle was 20 years ago when he was commissioned to create Play On Earth, a drama in real time linking the city (from a base in the Guildhall) with others in Brazil and Singapore.
In each place there were actors and technicians dedicated to performing a seamless drama as if they were all on stage in one location.
If Dominoes sounds simple on the face of it, Play On Earth was always going to be fiendishly tricky.
Julain confesses to having “vivid memories” of it.
“It was bloody difficult. In those days the internet was not as reliable as it is now. It was technically a tricky set-up and there was a World Cup on which meant our Brazil end would sort of collapse.”
More recently, in 2018, he tested the idea again. Technology may have moved on but linking London and Gaza in one live-streamed drama – At Home in Gaza and London - proved challenging for political and logistical reasons.
But back to Dominoes, a phenomenon owing more to simple physics than digital gizmos.
For the 2.5 kilometre Newcastle run, Julian and his team have mapped a route that will begin on the old concrete pedestrian walkway near the City Library and run through the city centre (via Tyneside Cinema, Theatre Royal, Assembly Rooms and elsewhere) to the Helix building, part of Newcastle Science Central (near St James’ Park).
“The idea is that it connects the 1960s futurist view of Newcastle to a futurist view of Newcastle in 2026,” says Julian.
“I thought it’d be great to use the walkways because they’re archetypal… for me, anyway.
“I’m a southerner. I don’t really know anything about Newcastle but I’ve seen it in the movies so this seems to me quintessentially part of the city.
“However out of date they appear now, the walkways are a vivid reminder of how the city was planned back then. It was modern at the time.”
The breezeblocks will follow a route, laid out using rope, in and out of the library and then onto the street.
“It’ll go into a number of places,” says Julian. “We try to make it interesting.”
The breezeblocks will be laid out by the volunteers just before the run, with approximately 40 centimetre gaps between them.
Sometimes they might go upstairs (it can be done) and occasionally, as in the library, a breezeblock will drop from a height onto one below, enabling the run to continue on a different level.
To see some dramatic breezeblock constructions bite the dust, Grey’s Monument is going to be the place to be.
Everything that can be done to prevent mishaps or mischief will be done, promises Julian.
Excited kids who might be tempted to initiate a pre-emptive topple can usually be won over to the project, he says.
“Sometimes they guard the line for us and explain to people what’s going to happen. They just want to be involved and they’ve always been great in the end.”
Two potential bugbears, from bitter experience, are cobble stones (breezeblocks rest uneasily on those) and drunks (for obvious reasons).
“But by the time the thing starts going,” says Julian, “it’s out of my hands.
“We have a production manager who’ll run along behind with a walkie talkie. He’s there to fix any mistakes, which occasionally happen.
“That’s the nature of the game. You do everything you can to make it perfect but, as in football, the best laid plans don’t always work.”
After the first Dominoes run, a construction magazine reported that enough ‘aircrete’ lightweight breezeblocks to build five houses had been used.
“We try and recycle them as ecologically as we can,” says Julian.
“You can’t re-sell them afterwards as new but you can sell them as second hand. We try and get other uses for them so they go to community projects of various kinds.
“If all else fails they go back to the manufacturers who have a system of reusing the basic material.”
In Newcastle that task will be undertaken by New Tyne West Development Company (NTWDC) whose sponsorship of the event includes paying for the breezeblocks and then repurposing them for community use.
While completely dependent on the simple idea of one block toppling its neighbour, an incredible amount of planning goes into each Dominoes run.
“It’s a bit like getting an army ready for an assault,” suggests Julian.
On the big day – Sunday, August 9 – people can walk the route from 2.30pm and watch the volunteers putting the dominoes up (downloadable maps are available from The NOVUM Summer Festival website).
The first block is due to topple at 4.30pm and it’s estimated 30 minutes will elapse before the last follows suit. If all goes to plan, a ripple of excited shouts and cheers will follow its progress.
To find out about being a Dominoes Newcastle volunteer, go to the festival website… which is also where you’ll find the full programme.
After two pilot years, the festival, delivered by Newcastle City Council’s cultural events team, is back with a bang (or a succession of thuds), made possible by various partners, community groups, artists and organisations across the city.
Here’s what some interested parties are saying about Dominoes Newcastle:
Councillor Rob Austin (cabinet member for culture, communities and youth services, Newcastle City Council): “As the spectacular finale to NOVUM Summer Festival, this is a chance for thousands of people to experience Newcastle in a completely new way while celebrating everything that makes our city special.”
Siobhan Lightfoot (director of operations, Theatre Royal): “As we continue on our mission to be open to more people more of the time, it’s exciting to see our iconic building become part of such as ambitious event, giving us the opportunity to welcome visitors through our doors and create moments of magic off stage.”
Prof James Annesley (lead for creative places, Newcastle University): “It’s a great opportunity to celebrate the people and ambition that make our region special. Newcastle Helix is a key part of the future of Newcastle and we’re delighted to see it playing a role in an occasion that connects people and showcases the city.”
Lee McGray (director, NTWDC): “We’re incredibly proud to support Dominoes Newcastle and to help bring such as ambitious and memorable event to the heart of the city.”