The Tales Retold Project: Drama and Resilience in Blackpool

Beyond the bright lights of the Blackpool illuminations and the thrills and spills of the Pleasure Beach rides, another story is playing out. A disturbingly large proportion of children in and around Blackpool face at least one disadvantage, while many face multiple disadvantages. Blackpool has the highest number of children and young people in care in England, and is home to some of the most deprived areas in the UK.

It's well established that economic deprivation has a significant effect on children’s wellbeing and development. It can result in lower achievement and engagement at school, and higher levels of anxiety and behavioural problems.

Over the past couple of years, an innovative drama project developed by Blackpool Grand Theatre has helped children in the area to tackle some of these challenges, enabling them to strengthen their personal resilience, as well as gaining new skills and confidence in storytelling, drama and oracy.

Through its Tales Retold project, Blackpool Grand Theatre has created opportunities for over 700 schoolchildren from 12 local primary schools to take part in the programme. The project started in December 2020 and runs until July 2024. 

As part of its ongoing commitment to charitable work in education via its Education Committee, the Goldsmiths’ Company Charity is supporting Tales Retold with a grant of £104,880. 

Judith Cobham-Lowe OBE, Chairman of the Goldsmiths’ Company Education Committee, explains the reason for the charity’s support. “We believe that every child deserves the best possible start in life. We decided to support Blackpool Grand’s Tales Retold project because it is a perfect example of how you can encourage young children to become much more confident and resilient, just by following their imaginations – and having fun.”

In the project, pupils from Years 4 to 6  (aged 8-11) are exploring storytelling and story making. In the first year they worked with an adaptation of Gangsta Granny by David Walliams, watching the play at the Grand and retelling parts of the story through performances at school and on the Grand’s stage. In role, they advised the characters about resilience and practised ‘resilient moves’ that could improve the outcomes for characters.  

This year, children are working on Michael Rosen’s Unexpected Twist. They’re looking forward to seeing the play at the Grand and to sharing their performances on stage in July. The Grand has commissioned the North West theatre company, The Knotted Project, as lead artists and drama practitioners for the initiative.

Celine Wyatt, Head of Creative Development and Learning at the Grand, says: “Tales Retold draws on our unique ‘Story-Led Resilient Practice™’  that uses stories as a gateway to identify and explore resilience through characters’ journeys. This allows children to stop and pause the action, identify when characters are responding well to challenges and when they could have used a different approach. 

“Pupils are encouraged to spot resilient behaviour such as planning, being brave, trying new things, being helpful and expressing feelings. By learning from characters’ resilience, children build their capacity for problem-solving and are more able to understand that there are a range of possibilities for change.”

The Tales Retold project forms part of a broader commitment in Blackpool to help strengthen resilience and literacy for children and young people across the town. The Grand’s ground-breaking Story-Led Resilience Programme, of which this project is part, seeks to improve young people’s resilience and confidence. Through story and drama, children build their oracy skills, helping them to communicate more effectively and strengthen their ability to cope with life’s ups and downs. 

The impact has been profound. Since taking part in the project, more than 75% of young people agree they’ve increased their skills in a range of areas, including being organised, making friends, calming down, following rules, making decisions, joining in, understanding others and sharing ideas out loud.

Children from St John Vianney RC School, one of the participating primary schools, shared their thoughts about the experience. One pupil said: “During Tales Retold, I’ve learned to be confident and express my feelings and just experiment.” 

Another commented on the link between friendship and resilience, saying: “Resilience can help when you’re making friends, because you can’t make friends if you don’t speak to them.”

A third child simply said: “I felt like loud and proud of myself.”

In focus groups that explored reactions to Tales Retold, young people said that resilience means never giving up and keeping going when times are tough, as well as being helpful to each other. This suggests that the project is deepening young people’s understanding of the idea of resilience. 

“Children have gained so much confidence from the Tales Retold project,” says Dr Elaine Allen, Executive Headteacher of St John Vianney RC School.

“It’s helped them to feel safe and secure when they’re speaking to each other. They’re thinking about what they should say and how they should say it.

“We’ve also discovered that children often feel safer talking about how characters in stories have behaved in a resilient way, rather than referencing their own experiences. So the project has helped them to evaluate different ways of dealing with people and situations in their lives.”

As further proof of the power of the Grand’s Story-Led Resilience Programme, it has now been shortlisted for the Community Project of the Year at The Stage Awards 2023. 

“We are thrilled to be working in partnership with the Goldsmiths’ Company Charity to deliver this transformational programme of work,” says Adam Knight, Chief Executive of Blackpool Grand Theatre.

 “Tales Retold is making a demonstrable difference to the lives and aspirations of children in Blackpool and beyond, and crucially it’s creating a better understanding of the relevance and importance of theatre and the arts not only in the positive development and shaping of young people’s lives, but within a wider societal context. I am very proud that the national significance of this project has been recognised by The Stage Awards 2023.”

For Celine, the involvement of the Goldsmiths’ Company Education Committee has been genuinely transformative. “The funding from the Goldsmiths’ Company has been a gamechanger,” she says. “It’s allowed us to commit to a long-term project, rather than just a one-off event. Children are getting 36 high-quality drama workshops delivered over two years.

“During that time, they get to perform and share work on our stage, become story ambassadors and co-produce the first storytelling festival for Blackpool.”

The funding has also enabled the project to carry out in-depth analysis of the impact of the initiative over time.

“Now we’re seeing how this approach can help children develop higher-level thinking skills and reflective thinking, enabling them to self-assess, evaluate, move ahead and embrace change,” adds Celine.

“Blackpool Grand Theatre is a charity and we take our commitment to the community very seriously,” she says. “Tales Retold is important to us because it helps us serve our community, enrich lives and improve the life chances of our young people.

“From the start, the Goldsmiths’ Company Education Committee has been an amazing partner. They fully understood the potential of story-led resilience to help develop oracy skills and resilient wellbeing in the education sector, and their support has enabled me to develop this work further. They had a lot of faith in me, in the theatre and in the work. They’ve been brilliant.”

Acknowledgements
‘Story-Led Resilient Practice’ (Celine Wyatt, 2017, adapted 2020, 2022)
‘Story-Led Resilience’ (Celine Wyatt, 2019)
© Blackpool Grand Theatre, 2017
‘Tales Retold’ © Blackpool Grand Theatre, 2020)

All rights reserved