News
The Duchess visits the Unicorn Theatre in Southwark, London
10th June 2009
The Duchess of Cornwall met schoolchildren at the Unicorn Theatre in Southwark, London today.
The Duchess is Patron of the Unicorn Theatre which is the United Kingdom’s flagship theatre for young people.
Today The Duchess saw a performance of For The Best, a production based on the stories of children from the Dialysis Unit of the Evelina Hospital School.
For the Best is the culmination of a nine-month collaboration between the Unicorn, Director Mark Storor and Producer Anna Ledgard, and nine children from the Dialysis Unit of the Evelina Hospital School.
The stories and images they created were then shared with two primary schools (Charles Dickens School in Southwark and Worple School in Hounslow), where pupils contributed their ideas and responses.
All the children’s ideas were then used by the production’s professional cast to develop an imaginative piece of site-specific theatre with the children’s voices at its core.
The Duchess, who has been Patron of the Unicorn Theatre since Autumn 2007, met the young people who had inspired the work.
The Unicorn Theatre creates its own productions, but also hosts visits by some of the World’s great theatre companies for young people to attend.
Since opening in December 2005, international guests have come from Sweden, Denmark, Italy, The Netherlands, South Africa and Japan.
Every year 620 performances are staged, as well as a wide range of special events, workshops and other theatre activities.
The Theatre also runs an extensive Education programme, which works with visiting schools and local young people.