On 7th August we staged our world premiere of 100% Wolf, from the book by Jayne Lyons. The show opened to the public at the Geoffrey Allen Centre, Gamesley and then two days later at the 
Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton.
“It was hilarious, it was amazing – and the talent!”
This was the culmination of year 2 of the Tall Tales programme, which began at the end of April in workshops at the Gamesley Community Cafe and Fairfield Dreamscheme in Buxton. The two groups came together in this year’s summer school – and created the final show in just over a week.
“I know like, when you’re on stage, you might feel a bit worried and sick, but then when you get a bit closer to the end, you might feel a bit relieved that you’ve managed to get through it and not like had a breakdown!”
Watch the show here:
“and why is it you get more confidence?”
“Because it makes you much happier in yourself
Because it gives you better experiences…”
“I got stage fright – and I felt bit scared, like I couldn’t do it… but then I remember I felt alright, so then I could carry on…”
“and why is it you get more confidence?”
“Because it makes you much happier in yourself
Because it gives you better experiences…”
“Yeah – It’s like you look at how many chairs it roughly is, and you think there’s people are going to be sitting there later – and that scares you a bit”
The summer school began when the two groups met on a trip to Manchester International Festival, to see the international premiere of Wonder.land by Damon Albarn. This inspirational trip was followed up with another trip into Manchester to the Art Gallery, where they worked in one of their studios using physical materials and digital methods to create themes and images for the show. Then they went to the open day at the Bridgewater Hall, tried out instruments, toured the building and had the chance to conduct part of the Halle Orchestra!
After the fun the rest of the summer school was at Hope Valley College music department, where the hard work began – with just a week to create their finished show!
More than 35 young people from the two estates have taken part, with 20 coming together for the 
“I think my favourite session was the part where, me Ruby and Jack and Jess and her friend, we did like a song and it’s got like a hand clap in it, like a little beat with our hands, and we did it all ourselves with a bit of help from Caro, and then like we keep on getting the tune wrong, but then we soon got used to it, and then we had to perform it to everyone – and we were just like facing the table to not look at everyone, and some people was just videoing each group, and like yeah it was okay and so we were trying to think of a part for where Ruby could play flute in, but it didn’t actually quite fit…”
“I remember that I worked with Kristian, I brought my violin and we made all noises and made sounds, so when we did that, he put them on this cardboard piece attached to this wire, so when we press it it plays our sound we made.”
Following on from its brilliant success at Gamesley, Blue John had his second outing to the Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton on 2nd September. The young performers loved the excitement of a professional venue and to top it all they played to none other than the author herself, Berlie Doherty. She said
