Flock Theatre Makers are delighted to be collaborating with the staff on the Bluefin ward at Worthing Hospital to bring high-quality arts projects to young people who are separated from their usual lives due to illness or receiving treatment.

The project arose from conversations with Dr Julia Fozard (Consultant Paediatrician/Children’s Cancer Services) and recognises the benefit arts intervention can have on emotional and physical health/well-being whilst young people are patients. 

Flock believes that theatre can create spaces for people to step into and re-imagine possibilities offered by the world around them. Nowhere could this be more important than hospitals where the scope for creating transformative experiences for children, families and staff is substantial. Our aim is to produce work which is inclusive and imaginative - believing no family should feel left behind from the cultural life of their community; unable to access opportunities due to financial pressures, illness or accessibility concerns. We are keenly aware of the value in bringing an arts project to a hospital at a time when the NHS is under huge pressure.

The starting point for all of our creative work was ‘The Girl and the Dinosaur’ - a fantastical seaside picture book by Hollie Hughes and Sarah Massini, about the power of dreams and imagination. Next to people’s beds we created stories, made model dinosaur puppets, wrote scripts and recorded songs.

The project was funded by The Enjoolata Foundation and the artists on the project were:

Emma Higham: writer/director and Flock co-director

Freya Wynn-Jones: singer/songwriter and Flock co-director

Sam Glazer - cellist/song writer

Sophia Lovell Smith - designer