Puppetry and Lancashire History

The environment

Throughout the project people involved - volunteers, performers, staff, audience members - have travelled to events on foot, by bus, train or tram or car shared. Many of the props, costumes & set items were purchased 2nd hand, reused from other performers or made by recycling old material.

The local economy

Brought new visitors into local archive, history & library spaces. Visitors who would not have known spaces were accessible to the public, increasing opportunities for further engagement.

Volunteering, jobs & education

Over 150 volunteer hours contributed to the project supported research, uncovered local history stories, and highlighted the value of local history spaces & archive collections. Supporting local communities to engage with local spaces, heritage & culture.

Arts, culture & heritage

The project increased engagement and awareness to family audiences. Currently, this audience is not widely represented in Local History & Archive spaces. Many visitors to our workshops & performances had never been into their local history space before but would come again! The project highlighted how local history collections can be used in innovative ways to engage with new audiences. To reinterpret collections in a different way, to tell stories that may otherwise be left untold. The project brought new volunteers into local history spaces. Some engaged directly with the project, others took on other roles available within archives & local history. Some volunteers shared new insights into existing local history collections or new accounts of local history. We are now looking at other funding to enable the project to extend into more Lancashire Local History spaces.

Activity, health and leisure

Our project supported people feeling isolated, living with illness to be involved in a local project. Local history staff provided opportunities to engage in-person, on-line or with tasks that could be done from home. One highlight was an elderly lady who lived alone and used to enjoy the theatre, saw the performance advertised and, as it was local & free, could come along and watch.