Platinum Jubilee event
7 October 2024

To mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, we delivered a project with Miracle Theatre that aimed to enhance creative learning, engage new audiences with theatre and provide a unique opportunity for our elderly community.

This project was possible thanks to a grant from the Arts Council. We invited people to apply to take part in a week of workshops run by Miracle Theatre. The eight participants worked with five members of Miracle Theatre over five days to learn skills, gain confidence and create a performance for an invited audience of elderly local residents.

The creative team explored ideas around previous Jubilee celebrations in history, street parties, community connections and local stories. The workshop process was designed to allow the art to work alongside each form with craft taking place at the same time as workshops in music and theatre.

The theatre work focused on storytelling, performance, collaboration and writing. Each participant was given an era to work on, these included presenting a story, poem, playing music, singing and hosting games that represented each decade across the 70 years. This structure provided a great learning base for each individual, setting their own personal performance task to achieve. The results were fantastic, the performers grew in confidence and overcame some big personal challenges. We built a beautiful event that entertained our audiences with nostalgia, warmth, fun and celebration.

The audience were all elderly local residents who either live alone or would benefit from this sociable and uplifting event. There were 58 elderly people who attended the event. We transported four people with limited mobility to and from the event, and we delivered a take-away afternoon tea to five people who would have liked to have come but couldn’t leave their houses.

We worked with Mousehole Archive group to have a photographic display of images from Mousehole’s past including Royal visits and carnivals. This display was a great way to start conversations and engage the guests with the event.

We also had a brilliant musical duo ‘Pendans’ performing live music at the beginning and the end of the event which created a wonderful atmosphere. There was such an air of excitement and the buzz of conversation and smiling faces made us realise just how worthwhile this was before the performance even began. But once the performers and the Miracle team began the show, it was really wonderful to see. Everyone in the hall was completely engaged – the performers were interacting with the audience, and you could see the joy on the faces of the performers and audience alike.By attending our events or hiring the hall you are helping to fund our community projects. If you would like to make a donation you can do so here.

Comments from the audience included:

“The whole event was so wonderful. Thank you so much for inviting me, I can’t remember the last time I laughed like this.”

“I haven’t seen these faces in years, what a lovely thing to do”  Tanya Harvey

“That was just brilliant, and if you hadn’t come to pick me up, I wouldn’t have been able to come and enjoy this, thank you very much”  Tommy Waters

Feedback on the project from the theatre participants includes:

“I have learned lots of new skills and built confidence”

“I learned what fun it can be helping to devise new work with a group”

“I did a solo performance for the first time ever!”

“The thing I enjoyed most was working collaboratively with a creative team”.