Guided tour of the exhibition 'The Way We Live' led by its curator Beth Hughes, exploring home, housing and community in post-war Plymouth.
The Box is opening a major new exhibition, The Way We Live, and curator Beth Hughes is leading a tour of it on Saturday 24 October. It's part of Super Saturday, so it's one of several things on that morning, and the tour itself runs from 10.30 to 11.30am.
The show looks at home, housing and community, and takes its name and spirit from Jill Craigie's 1946 film The Way We Live. That film was radical for its time: Craigie cast local residents rather than professional actors to ask how people actually wanted to live. The exhibition also draws on A Plan for Plymouth (1943), the post-war rebuilding vision from planner Patrick Abercrombie and City Engineer and Surveyor James Paton Watson. Their ideas for the city after the Blitz shared those same themes of community, inequality and access to housing, education and healthcare.
Across two galleries, the show brings together contemporary art responses, with further spaces dedicated to archival collections about post-war Plymouth. In the Media Lab, you can see a newly rescanned and restored version of Craigie's film. It's a lot to take in on your own, so having the curator walk you through it is a good way to get the full picture.
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This is one of several exhibitions on at the museum this year. CEO Victoria Pomery called the 2026 programme the most ambitious yet, and The Way We Live runs alongside Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy, Journeys with Mai and Steve McQueen: Grenfell. The tour is £5.00, though it's currently sold out, so you'll need to check for any last-minute cancellations if you're hoping to get in.
