Newcastle theatre launches "Rubbish" musical to engage with environmental issues

"This Show Is Rubbish" is a family friendly musical all about the environment

Author: Ellie KumarPublished 1st Aug 2022

A new family friendly play in Newcastle is hoping to get kids - and parents - to engage with climate change issues and how we can help the environment.

This Show Is Rubbish is a musical, on at Alphabetti, to kick start the summer holidays, which tells the story of a mother and daughter, and is hoping to share ways we can help protect the world we live in.

Alongside the performances, the creators are running 2 Make Rubbish Workshops on the Saturdays - 6th and 13th of August.

These will see children learning how to turn cleaned plastic and rubbish items into recycled musical instruments, make music and play games.

Director Siobhán Cannon-Brownlie tells us it was really important to keep the environmental ethics throughout the show:

"The design process on the show has been really interesting.

"Our designer, Molly Barrett, hasn't purchased anything new - everything that you see on the stage is recycled, is repurposed.

"We went on a beach combing exercise during rehearsals to collect our own rubbish and use that within the show."

As always - Alphabetti and the shows put on there are committed to making theatre accessible for everyone, so all performances of This Show Is Rubbish are relaxed, meaning people can get up and move, or leave the auditorium as and when they need to.

Some shows will also be audio-described and captioned as well, and all Alphabetti shows are priced as Pay What You Feel, with anonymous payment methods.

Rob Green, composer, tells us what he hopes families can take from the show;

"I hope that the audience leaves inspired - to not only explore the environmentalism side of things, but also to just create music and play and games and stuff together."

"Families are generally really good at this, but sometimes we can be a little bit separate, especially if you've got children of lots of different ages."

This Show Is Rubbish is on at Alphabetti Theatre until the 13th of August.

You can find out more about the show here, and the workshops as well.

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