‘Pluck’ is a mini travelling theatre that brings puppetry and harp music to children on our paediatric wards. Each performance is tailored to the child, offering a moment of joy, imagination and escape during their hospital stay. ‘Pluck’ is part of the CW+ Arts for All programme, which aims to improve patient experience with daily music, performance and activities.
In this video, musician Mark Levin and puppeteer Joni-Rae Carrack explain how these performances benefit patients, families and staff at our Trust.
Adapting performances for every child
Pluck is a mini travelling theatre that combines puppetry, light effects and live harp music to create sensory mini shows for paediatric patients. In the hospital you’re often working one-to-one. It really enables us to adapt a performance to suit individual needs. We can start with a story, but if a patient loves one puppet or really engages with a bit of the music, we can adapt what we do to go to that.
Creating opportunities for play
Children, even when they’re very ill, are still children and they still want to play and laugh and joke. Because the shows that we offer are very relaxing, very engaging and patients don’t have to get out of bed or anything, they can still enjoy it and it can be play for them as well.
Seeing the impact on patients and families
Taking them on a space adventure or to visit a penguin, seeing the smiles, seeing someone relax, it’s just very rewarding. Sometimes the children don’t engage that much but the parents really do. I remember years ago it was supposed to be trying to get the child to sleep, but the dad fell asleep instead. It just shows how important it can be, the effect you can have on the patient, but also their family.
Working alongside hospital staff
The staff see the value of what we do, but also the benefits. You can see us coming because we have this big harp and this trolley. I see the staff going: ‘Oh, I know who would like that’ or ‘This would be perfect now because I need to… this child hates needles, but I’ve got to do this, so can they watch this show? It’d be really, really good.’
Making difficult experiences more positive
We’re not getting bogged down with why they might be there. It’s more: ‘What can we do to make that experience a bit more positive?’ I think being able to go to someone and connect with them during possibly one of the most difficult periods of time that they’re experiencing is so, so important.
Why arts in health matters
I think it’s really important for the CW+ Arts for All programme to continue on and on and on. It demonstrates to other places how important arts in health can be. If you’re thinking of donating to CW+’s Thirty at Thirty campaign, I would just say: ‘Go for it.’ We just want to keep on doing more and bringing more to patients. We can’t always take the pain away. We’re not medical staff, we’re not therapists, but what we can do is bring that little bit of lightness into the space.
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With your support, we can continue bringing joy to our patients through music, art, dance and more
