Research

The Polka Theatre

General Notes

- The company was first established in 1979, entertaining over 90,000 children a year.

- Polka has three main aims: to stir the emotions, spark the imaginations and entertain thousands of kids.

- It offers two theatre spaces, the Main Theatre and the Adventure Theatre, both designed for children to get their first welcoming taste to the world of theatre.

Polka originally started out as a touring company in 1967. They utilised other venues to perform their productions, but this meant that they were limited to small casts and limited on what shows they could fit onto the stages they were able to perform on. "In 1976, Polka found the Holy Trinity Halls in Wimbledon and in 1979, following a lengthy fundraising campaign, Polka’s dream of a permanent home for children’s theatre became a reality."

Programming

The productions performed at Polka are always shifting, every few weeks a new production is in. This gives children a constant stream of choice on theatrical performances to see. As well as this, Polka has two theatres, offering even more choice and entertainment available to the public. The programming shows a focus on art and creativity, being not only educational with the morals offered in the productions, but also broadening the audience's perspective on matters that are relatable. A creative imagination can be sparked here.



Outside The Performances

Workshops and after-school sessions are available for children to "act, sing, dance and create" at Polka. Alongside this, Polka offer resource packs for teachers who come with a school of children to see a production. Workshops from that production are also available to get the children involved in the creativity and excitement of theatre.
   


Unicorn Theatre

General Notes
- first established in 1947 as a touring company by Caryl Jenner, committed to giving childrena valuable and first experience of 'quality theatre'.

- their main aim is to strive to push the boundaries of the imagination in everything they do: working for families, schools and young people.

- two theatres, four floors of  public spaces,  and two rehearsal studios

Programming

Similar to Polka Theatre, the programming likes to shift. However, unlike Polka, they have shows in for longer periods of time, such as 'The Caucasian Chalk Circle', which will be in for 2 months in the year of 2015.They also have workshops and other events for children to get involved in, and educate themselves in theatre.

Mr Tumble

Mr Tumble is a character that is a part of the CBeebies BBC programme, 'Something Special'. He creates funny stories and informative episodes designed for children with special needs. The audience can communicate and learn Makaton sign language with Mr Tumble, as he explores different scenarios, and also allows them to craft various objects, much like shows such as 'Art Attack' did previously.

As you can see from the clip above, Mr Tumble uses sign language to communicate with the audience. This is to cater towards those with the deafness disability. However, looking at the intonations in his voice, he has a clear speaking voice, worthy of storytelling and performance. His voice is clear to understand, and is clearly aimed at the target audience of young children, which is something we need to consider in our performance. His actions are subtle yet successful, as his movement is clear, but being for television, he is limited, whereas we can make our movements larger for comedic effect and also to clearly illustrate what is happening throughout.