As a research-led organisation, Concrete Youth is committed to ensuring that all our work is grounded in rigorous enquiry, inclusive methodologies, and the lived experiences of our audiences. We believe that meaningful, impactful art must be rooted in genuine understanding—particularly when working with people labelled with profound and multiple learning disabilities.
Our senior management team are doctoral researchers whose academic work in sensory engagement, access, and inclusive theatre-making directly shapes the charity’s output. This research is embedded across all areas of our work—from productions and education programmes to touring and audience development—ensuring that everything we create is informed by the latest thinking and tailored to real-world needs. We prioritise co-creation with co-researchers labelled with profound and multiple learning disabilities, recognising them as essential partners in shaping our work and research.
Concrete Youth’s projects are underpinned by this approach. The ASMR Project (2021) was the UK’s first investigation into the use of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response in theatre for audiences with profound and multiple learning disabilities, setting a new precedent in the sector. Our current research project, Blueprint (2025), is a three-phase national study exploring how to create multiple, bespoke versions of a single sensory theatre production. It builds a new audience categorisation model grounded in co-creation, ensuring our work remains responsive, equitable, and deeply relevant.
Blueprint is an ambitious new research-led project that aims to re-examine how sensory theatre can be created alongside audiences labelled with profound and multiple learning disabilities.
Building on years of national touring, acclaimed productions, and award-winning access work, Blueprint marks a significant step forward in the company’s mission to improve cultural access for one of the most underserved audiences in the UK. Blueprint will explore how sensory theatre can push sensory theatre into a bespoke format of delivery. Through a combination of creative experimentation and academic rigour, the project will investigate how tailored sensory experiences can be developed in collaboration with audience members and their support networks.
The ASMR Project was a ground-breaking new project to explore the benefits and effects of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) on audiences with profound and multiple learning disabilities.
ASMR signifies the subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria characterised by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin". It is most commonly triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attention control. A genre of videos intended to induce ASMR has emerged, over 13 million of which had been published on YouTube by 2018.
Despite people labelled with profound and multiple learning disabilities often being called ‘sensory beings’, ASMR is a sensory experience that has been little used with them. Concrete Youth’s project will examine and explore how ASMR benefits and impacts people with PMLD, before exploring how ASMR could be integrated into a new multi-sensory theatre production.