"Brave isn't how you feel, it's what you do"
Written by Danielle Burn
Produced by Mortal Fools
'MELVA' tells the story of a 10-year-old girl whose struggles with anxiety, or 'worrits' as she knows them, keep her from leaving the house. Her Grandpa has grown so worried about her that he fakes his own disappearance in the hope that it will compel Melva to leave the house and overcome her ‘bad worrits’. What follows is a funny and poignant adventure for them both, where each learn how their ‘worrits’ affect them and new ways to tackle them separately and together.
Written by Danielle Burn
Produced by Mortal Fools
'MELVA' tells the story of a 10-year-old girl whose struggles with anxiety, or 'worrits' as she knows them, keep her from leaving the house. Her Grandpa has grown so worried about her that he fakes his own disappearance in the hope that it will compel Melva to leave the house and overcome her ‘bad worrits’. What follows is a funny and poignant adventure for them both, where each learn how their ‘worrits’ affect them and new ways to tackle them separately and together.
Thanks to strategic level funding from Arts Council England, this production has now been developed into a touring theatre package for schools, in partnership with our friends at Children North East:
Printed lesson plans and online project resources for KS2 classroom use
80min theatre performance and accompanying post-show activities featuring characters from the play
One day practical wellbeing and resilience CPD training workshop for mental health leads / SENDcos with Mortal Fools
Printed lesson plans and online project resources for KS2 classroom use
80min theatre performance and accompanying post-show activities featuring characters from the play
One day practical wellbeing and resilience CPD training workshop for mental health leads / SENDcos with Mortal Fools
How can schools access MELVA?
We are currently fully booked for our Februry 2020 schools tour, however you can still register your schools' interest using the form below. This will mean you can be added to our waiting list, should a space become available.
We have public and school performances of MELVA at Gosforth Civic Theatre on Wed 4, Thu 5, and Fri 7 March.
We are currently fully booked for our Februry 2020 schools tour, however you can still register your schools' interest using the form below. This will mean you can be added to our waiting list, should a space become available.
We have public and school performances of MELVA at Gosforth Civic Theatre on Wed 4, Thu 5, and Fri 7 March.
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Peformance Dates & Times:
Schools: Wed 4, Thu 5 & Fri 6 - 09:45 & 13:00 Public: Wed 4 & Thu 5 - 19:00 We can accommodate up to 120 students per school performance. For more details about the schools offer at Gosforth Civic Theatre, please download the information packs. |
Information Packs for Schools:
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"I learned that being afraid of something doesn't mean you can't do it"
“It was very funny and made me understand more about anxiety”
- pupils, melva tour autumn 2019
Listen to Headteacher, Jacqueline Mowat, talk about her experience of having the MELVA project in her school, Hareside Primary School:
About the Play
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What if…
I’m doing a test and trying my best, but the words are meaningless data, they jump about on the paper, some backwards, some not, and I’m losing the plot, and I’m gonna look silly, like that boy with a willy picture, stuck on his top when he went to the shop after school... |
Do you have worrits? You know - that uncontrollable churning in the pit of your tummy like you have 341 worms squirming about?
Melva Mapletree has them too, and right now they won’t let her leave the house. But then, one night, something happens which changes her world forever.
Melva is for children aged 7-11, their teachers and families. It's a boisterous, mischievous and funny story of one girl’s
adventure to find out what she’s really capable of.
After a hugely successful run of sold-out public performances over Christmas 2017 in our temporary theatre space, Front Street Theatre, and incredible feedback from our audiences, we decided to develop the play as part of a touring package for schools and theatres.
The production is a creative tool to support children (and the adults who support them) to understand more about worries and anxieties and learn tools for self-care. This supports the mandate set out in the 2017 Green Paper Transforming Children and Young People's Mental Health Provision. We are working with Children North East and Public Health Northumberland.
Melva Mapletree has them too, and right now they won’t let her leave the house. But then, one night, something happens which changes her world forever.
Melva is for children aged 7-11, their teachers and families. It's a boisterous, mischievous and funny story of one girl’s
adventure to find out what she’s really capable of.
After a hugely successful run of sold-out public performances over Christmas 2017 in our temporary theatre space, Front Street Theatre, and incredible feedback from our audiences, we decided to develop the play as part of a touring package for schools and theatres.
The production is a creative tool to support children (and the adults who support them) to understand more about worries and anxieties and learn tools for self-care. This supports the mandate set out in the 2017 Green Paper Transforming Children and Young People's Mental Health Provision. We are working with Children North East and Public Health Northumberland.
We think 'Melva' is something really special,
but don't just take our word for it....
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About Front Street Theatre...
Since we don't have our own Mortal Fools theatre venue (yet...) we had to get creative in order to bring Melva to public audiences. As a company based in Prudhoe - a town in West Northumberland with very limited theatre provision - we were really keen to keep the production as central and accessible to the town as possible.
So, with A LOT of elbow grease and sheer determination, we converted an empty shop unit on the high street into 'Front Street Theatre' - our very own pop-up theatre space.
So, with A LOT of elbow grease and sheer determination, we converted an empty shop unit on the high street into 'Front Street Theatre' - our very own pop-up theatre space.
