Venue focus: Blackpool Grand Theatre

Going some way towards compensating for the absence of curriculum drama, the Grand Theatre, Blackpool, is rolling out one of the country's most inspirational and far-reaching education programmes for children and young people. Its driving force is Celine Wyatt, a former teacher and theatre practitioner, whose work with the town's children and young people was recognised by two national awards in 2023.

Using the government's Resilience Framework, which has been around since the mid-noughties, Wyatt began developing a story-led model to help vulnerable youngsters in and around Blackpool build confidence and learn to deal with adversity.

She says, ‘I asked myself how could I open up the power and potential of stories on stage and use them as a gateway? That's when I came up with the Resilience Storycard, connecting elements of a story with resilient moves, skills and strategies. I commissioned various artists to test ways of developing the practice, and we took that into eight local schools and youth organisations in 2017-19.’

A leading force

Wyatt has been associated with the Blackpool Grand since the mid-1990s when she joined them as their first education manager. She has also run her own company, doing shows promoting better public health and social justice; worked in partnership with Lancashire Youth Service while she was a cultural development officer for Lancashire County Council; finally returning to the Grand full-time in 2015 to head up a five-strong team focussing on creative development and learning.

Adam Knight, chief executive of the Grand since 2022, says Wyatt's work was one of the reasons he took the job. ‘For me the robust engagement with children in the community was a big attraction. I've always been passionate about how theatre can raise aspirations, create opportunities for young people, particularly in a town like Blackpool where there are well documented challenges. In regional theatre, creative engagement with the community can sometimes feel like a bolton but for me it's a core part of what we do, as important as what we put on stage. We have the chance to provide those opportunities that schools often do not.’

Blackpool's theatre scene

Blackpool has the highest level of children in care in the country. ‘There are significant numbers of people living in challenging circumstances,’ says Knight. ‘We 're seeing the effects of what we do reported by teachers and the difference it can make in family situations. The work that Celine and her team have done is an instrumental part of helping them on that journey.’

The success of the Grand's creative learning programme has led to a doubling of the Arts Council's NPO funding, from £213,000 to £463,000, enabling them to further develop the Story-led Resilience programme, and the Grand Young Company.

As with many other theatres and drama-led activities, the pandemic presented huge challenges for Wyatt and her team. She says, ‘We'd built up all this momentum and then we went into lockdown which was really frustrating, especially as we'd just got funding from the Esme Fairbairn Foundation.’ Not daunted, Wyatt and co. created activities and exercises on digital platforms. The work simply evolved in other configurations.

Measuring impact

A key part of the Grand's programme is evaluating the impact and effectiveness of its work and Wyatt was always clear that she wanted that evaluation to be made by the people on the receiving end. ‘I wanted junior evaluators so that the children were telling us how to develop the story-led resilience programme, showing us what was important to them. We were effectively putting children in the driving seat.’

Since lockdown, Wyatt has spearheaded the Children's Theatre Partnership, working in tandem with four other theatres – Newcastle Theatre Royal, Belgrade Coventry, Norwich Theatre Royal and the Marlowe, Canterbury. All five theatres are committed to the Story-led Resilience model, and their latest project, The Boy at the Back of the Class, touring the UK from February to June, will be the touchstone for many consequential discussions and workshops.

Closer to home, Wyatt says the Grand's creative learning programme has always been about long-term delivery. ‘It was never going to be enough to have three workshops here, six sessions there. I wanted our children to take part in 36 high quality workshops over two years, and that's what has happened. It is about repetition, reiteration and reenforcement. At the heart of it is to explore how we strengthen resilience and wellbeing in children and young people, how do we get across that it's not all your fault, there are other factors at play. You have responsibility for yourself but also for others. It's about individual and collective responsibility for each other's resilience and mental health. It's also about empowering the children to critically understand the change that might be possible.’

Blackpoolgrand.co.uk/get-involved