Plans to build on success of The Right Royal Rumpus

The Right Royal Rumpus! played Eastbourne Theatres’ Shackleton Hall from August 10-20, brought to the stage by the team at UnderWired Productions. Written by Kali Peacock, it offered a fully inclusive production placing children and families with disabilities – and those without – right at its heart.

Kali envisioned it as a show to bring communities together, offering a little respite for parents and carers and and bringing joy to those that find it difficult to access or be represented in the theatre. It certainly fulfilled its aims – a direct response to Kali’s own family situation.

Kali, who lives in Eastbourne with her family, explains: “We are a typical family, who enjoy lots of silliness, fun, music and laughter in our lives. I am a mother to three rather wonderful children – one of those is Finn who is a very talented, intelligent boy and it just so happens that Finn has multiple disabilities and challenging behaviours, but this certainly doesn’t stop him from thriving at all as he puts his energy into! It does sometimes mean for Finn that he cannot access many of the services and activities around our community that other children can.”

Hence she created a show with all special needs children in mind.

“And I was thrilled with the way it went, absolutely thrilled. The feedback has been extraordinary and a lot of the community of children with special needs were just saying that there is nothing like it at all for them. One of the ladies said that her daughter had had a severe seizure that morning and she almost didn't come but she was so glad that they did. They snuggled down together and had a wonderful time. And we've been hearing from homes that the residents are still singing the songs and we've had service users coming back multiple times saying they loved it so much.

“I've already partly secured lottery funding and I've got maybe a budget to do a brand-new multi-sensory show in 2023. It was such a journey to have all sorts of children sitting next to each other in the audience and people were saying about how welcome they were made to feel. We created a really welcoming atmosphere that made people feel really comfortable. I hope that there will be a future life for this show. I'm talking to somebody that has contact with CBeebies and thinks that it might be a perfect show for them. So we do hope there will be another life but in the mean time I am starting to write something else, starting right from the beginning. I'm wanting to brand-new show for next summer.”

One of the issues will be finding a venue which is really good at taking wheelchairs: “The Birley Centre next to the Towner is a possibility. But I've also got Arts Council funding to interview residents and carers in retirement homes. I'm planning to write a musical about that as well.”