Doing the write thing

Schools

What a draw – a real portrait of Shakespeare on the walls of Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery! Not only that, but portraits of Dizzee Rascal, Seamus Heaney, Roald Dahl, David Bowie, and J.K Rowling too! These and more made for a hugely successful exhibition for the schools of Plymouth and beyond. We organised a very successful series of workshops in partnership with the Theatre Royal Plymouth, with actors Harry Long and Joe Hancock. We wrote poetry, performed soundscapes and stop frames, and even wrote and performed our own plays. Lipson Community College brought their entire Year 8 along for the workshops. Hyde Park Infants, Devonport High School for Boys, All Saints Academy and Notre Dame brought groups in too. We also had non-workshop visits from Plymouth High School for Girls, Loddiswell Primary, Eggbuckland Vale Primary School and Plymouth College of Art.

Working with groups

The Core, our Youth Forum, organised two very successful events for young people. The first was called 'Music, Murder, Mystery' and was aimed at 11 to 18 year olds who were able to take part in graffiti and DJ workshops, a quiz about the writers on display, watch some great street dancing from Street Factory and also see Dizzee Rascal and William Shakespeare go head-to-head in a rap battle. For photos and film of the event, please visit our Flickr page.

Our Young Explainers also organised an event for over 18s called 'Gig in the Gallery'. Local singer-songwriters Josie Newton and Jamie Lawson both performed their songs in the gallery alongside the portraits, with Jamie even writing part of one of his songs especially for the occasion. Between sets, all the gig-goers took part in a special quiz based around the writers in the exhibition. A special ‘after-party’ then took place at popular student bar Ride, where Jamie performed once more, along with a set from Josie and the Lovecats. Take a look at some images from the evening on our Flickr page

As if that wasn't enough The Core ran a 'Hot Choccies and Funky Film Club' - a series of free screenings of films based on some of the work by authors in the exhibition - on selected Saturdays from October to December 2010. Everyone who came along was also treated to a free hot chocolate from our café – yum!

Community

Our Community Outreach team organised workshops with Malcy Duff, a graphic artist from Edinburgh. Malcy encourages drawing through non-traditional techniques including taking prints from ink suspended in water which led to some stunning results. In partnership with Plymouth Library Services we were able to work with Headspace for one of the workshops and invited members of the public along to another session.

Adult-friendly events

We held three lunchtime talks in connection with the 'Writers of Influence' exhibition. Author, Ben Crystal performed 'Shakespeare on Toast' based on his book of the same name in November 2010, while actor Lloyd Lee gave us three readings from Charles Dickens and curator and former Royal Shakespeare Company employee, Amelia Mariette talked 'Much Ado About Shakespeare' in December 2010.

Family-friendly events

We offered Saturday art activities inspired by J. K. Rowling and Roald Dahl during the exhibition run. You can see photos from our 'Harry Potter Halloween' event on our Flickr page.