Street Theatre Project
On Saturday 1st June 2024, the people of Melton Mowbray had the opportunity to meet the Un-Naturalists and travel with them through time, being entertained by their street and story theatre performances. With magic, comedy and drama, they brought to life both the known and the forgotten social stories of Melton Mowbray! In the morning there was a travelling performance that started at Melton Mowbray Library and then wound its way through the town telling stories along the way. In the afternoon there was a second static performance at Melton Carnegie Museum. It was a very special, unusual and entertaining day for everyone, and even the great British weather was kind!
The event was a huge success with 144 adults and children enjoying the show, not to mention the staff and volunteers that also had a fabulous time! As Julie, Melton Mowbray Library Services Assistant says:
‘Thanks for organising the Un-Naturalists event for everyone. It was a really joyful event in Melton. I thought they were superb and it really got heads turning in town. It was an exciting event for all ages with comedy, magic tricks and also educated us on the local history in a fun way. Can we do it again please!!!’
The stories that the Un-Naturalists performed were all new and bespoke tales unique to Melton Mowbray. We spent some months with The Un-Naturalists to research local people and stories so that they could develop a bespoke performance for the people of Melton Mowbray. Library and museum staff used the fantastic collections and archives to search for subjects that the Un-Naturalists wanted to explore and found some brilliant information that was incorporated into the performance.
We also drew upon our previous projects at Melton Mowbray Library, such as the ‘Melton In Our Time, Through Our Eyes’ photography and local studies project with a group of young people from Maplewell School Post-16. In this project, young people studied old photos of Melton, explored what feelings they inspired, leant how to take a good photo and then put all of the skills they had learnt into practise when taking their own photos of Melton, in their time.
In addition, we shared projects that we undertook at Melton Carnegie Museum. This included ‘Make Your Mark’, a project that was developed to engage young people with Melton Mowbray and its heritage beyond pork pies and Stilton cheese! The final result was an exhibition at the museum, co-created by young people from Long Field Spencer Academy. Another project that we have drawn inspiration from is ‘Mapping Melton’, a project where Melton Museum Research volunteers used the archives to paint a picture of what Melton was like at the time that Latham’s stunning 1871 Lordship map was produced. The final exhibition was then viewed by students from Long Field Spencer Academy, who took part in a bespoke workshop to engage them in the exhibition, and who went on to create some of their own additions to the exhibition including a fantastic interactive quiz!