In forty years of creating work, writing shows and performing together all around the world, we’ve found ourselves in some pretty interesting venues. Big and small theatres, studio spaces, galleries, museums, hospital wards, storefronts, prisons, care homes and the banks of the Thames. Now we’re writing this from the unusual quietness of the Silk Street Theatre at the Barbican Centre, where we’re in the middle of the development of a new project. Peggy will be performing RUFF on this same stage on the 14-16 April, telling the story of her stroke in 2011, in front of (hopefully!) 300 people each night.

Hundreds feels like a long way from the dozen or so audience members we could fit inside the WOW Café in New York in the ‘80s, but right now we’ve set our sights on a venue with room for everybody – or at least hundreds of millions of us. Split Britches are getting on… YouTube.

The project is being spearheaded by Tammy WhyNot, Lois’s trailer-trash charmer alter-ego, whose channel is already live here. Taking her cue from ‘these young ones’, Tammy has been shooting videos from her bedroom in the style of YouTube sensation ‘haul’ videos or vlogs; talking about what matters to her, inviting her friends for a chat, sharing the contents of her handbag. ‘Tammy Town’ sees Tammy spark dialogues about ageing issues, and invite contributions from over-50s YouTubers; ‘Tammy on Tour’ follows her public appearances around the UK this year (at Duckie’s Posh Club, and Margate’s Theatre Royal). Peggy is currently producing a webisode series, ‘That’s My Grandma, Go Grandma!’, centered on intergenerational conversations on a range of topics with her 21-year-old grandson. She also presents our first Public Service Announcement, on spotting the signs of a stroke – Tammy will go live with the next this summer, covering STIs in older populations.

We’ve seen the video-hosting site evolve and grow in popularity and scope, offering a democratic way to create and disseminate new work, build communities and hold conversations with people all around the world. As it stands, a lot of these possibilities have only been grasped by the younger generation, despite the fact that the access and freedom offered by YouTube would be even more welcome to seniors. Us golden gals (and guys) can often find our access to arts and culture restricted as we age, through decreasing mobility or transport links for example – with more risk of isolation, social invisibility, and exclusion from the important conversations.

By occupying YouTube as a venue for performance and discussion, and claiming the technology as a tool for elder wellbeing, we hope to create a vibrant online community of international seniors, as well as to sustain our own creativity as artists. In a context of shrinking resources for both the arts and support for older people, we are excited to take the same DIY strategies we used to create shows for shopfronts to become an internet sensation from our sofa.

Image credit: Christa Holka