Tide will Tell

As the longest established theatre company based in regions of Northern Ireland, Big Telly devised the Tide will Tell project which celebrates the company’s longstanding commitment with their local community.

Tide Will Tell was part of Big Telly’s Twentieth Birthday Programme and involved the pupils from five coastal primary schools – Ballyhackett (Castlerock), Bellarena (Limavady), Dunseverick (Bushmills), Barnish (Ballycastle) and Glenann (Cushendall) where they explored their relationship with the sea and their identity as islanders.

Schools participated in five workshops leading up to the final re-enactment:-

  • Drama and story-telling workshop. Children were encouraged to 'gather' stories from their communities, which were be dramatised during this workshop

  • Children were taken on a beach-combing session with an artist to bring back objects that have been given up by the sea for simple boat-building and creative story exercises

  • An information and craft session lead by the artist, in which participants found out about boats from their area of coastline and built simple replica craft using their found objects

  • A creative writing workshop where children invented stories inspired by their beach-found objects and gave voice to the characters from the stories they had gathered

  • A final workshop in which the children wrote a message from a character from their story on to a sail and fixed it to their replica boat

  • The project culminated in a costumed re-enactment of a quayside send-off with children and their parents, grandparents and neighbours invited to the launch of their light-bearing 'story boats' on the out-going tide at dusk. The re-enactments were photographed from the sea and the images will be reprinted on a limited edition of postcards that will carry extracts from the children's stories and a website address for the full histories

Tide Will Tell was funded by Heritage Lottery.

For further information on Community Educational Outreach projects with Big Telly, please contact the office on (028) 7083 2588 or email
info@big-telly.com