‘Noël Coward’ Family Activity Day

Saturday 20th February saw the Noël Coward Archive, the Noël Coward Foundation and the Guildhall Art Gallery collaborate in the first education event connected with the Noël Coward: Art & Style Exhibition.

Hosted on Zoom and coinciding with Half Term and LGBT History Month, ‘Make a Play In A Day’ explored Coward’s contribution to theatre, art and style in an open and inclusive way. The morning began with an hour of storytelling and song from Topsie Redfern of Drag Queen Story Time, which made a dramatic start to the day. Highlights included the tongue-twisting warm up ‘one smart fellow, he felt smart’, a reading of ‘Amazing Grace’ by Mary Hoffman which was a celebration of gender- and colour-blind casting, and a grand finale with Topsie singing both parts of the duet ‘A Whole New World’.

Then began the three workshops building up to a performance at the end of the day. Firstly came Arkem Walton’s ‘Create A Costumed Character’ which saw families discuss what makes a character and then make their own as paper puppets. After lunch, Shelton Lindsay showed us how to ‘Make a Scene’, having transformed his room into an immersive set himself. Through the use of furniture toys, spare materials and even pets, families created sets as diverse as cityscapes, jungles and outer space! All this culminated in the final session with the Coward Archive’s Robert Hazle who steered the families through a ‘Sixty-Second Story’ challenge, combining everything they had learnt over the course of the day into a full performance in their Zoom Theatre.

The event was supported by the City of London and was an extremely successful day with lots of great feedback from parents. Thanks to all who took part, to Martin Bazley for his smooth moderation of the day and to Tanya Dean of the Guildhall Art Gallery for co-ordinating the event.