- Play Hard
- 5th Aug 2026
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Meet the man behind Newcastle’s biggest ever domino run at NOVUM Summer Festival finale
By David Whetstone
If it goes to plan, it will be the biggest domino run ever seen in the North East.
The idea of a giant domino run through the centre of Newcastle sounds beautifully simple, but also uniquely vulnerable.
Picture 8,000 breezeblocks lined up across 2.5 kilometres of Newcastle’s streets and spaces. Knock one down, and they’ll all follow. What could possibly go wrong?
Intended as the grand finale of this year’s NOVUM Summer Festival, taking place from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th August across Newcastle city centre, it’s the brainchild of Julian Maynard Smith, who has seen domino iterations in many places.
Cultured. North East’s David Whetstone spoke to the man behind this year’s exciting NOVUM Summer Festival finale.
HIGH LIFE NORTH TOP TIP: Want to know about NOVUM Summer Festival? Here’s everything you need to know.
“The project has the power to bring communities together through participation and engagement.”
Julian says.
MEET THE MAN BEHIND THE DOMINOES
Station House Opera (SHO), the performance art and theatre company he set up in 1980, had been using breezeblocks long before Dominoes debuted in London in 2009.
“We’d been using them in performances since 1985, I believe… throwing them around, catching them and building with them,” Julian says. “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.
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 40cm 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 appeal.
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 enjoyed 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.”
DRAWN TO THE DIFFICULT STUFF
Julian set out studying architecture at university but then switched to fine art which led to the tricky participatory projects in which SHO specialises.
“As an architecturally minded person I’m interested in space and the physical environment.”
“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.
Julian 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.
MAPPING THE ROUTE THROUGH NEWCASTLE
For the 2.5km Newcastle run, Julian and his team have mapped a route that will begin on the old concrete pedestrian walkway near the Newcastle 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 40cm 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.
KEEPING 8,000 BREEZEBLOCKS ON TRACK
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, it’s out of my hands.”
Says Julian.
“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.
How to watch or take part
On the big day, Sunday 9th August, people can walk the route from 2.30pm and watch the volunteers putting the dominoes up (downloadable maps are available from novumnewcastle.com).
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 website novumnewcastle.com.
Here you’ll also find the programme for this year’s festival, back with a bang (or a succession of thuds) after two pilot years and delivered by Newcastle City Council’s cultural events team with various partners, community groups, artists and organisations across the city.
David Whetstone is the co-editor of Cultured. North East, a website and newsletter spreading the word about North East culture.
Molly Ferry
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