Inclusive family fun and pure imagination – just magical!
bOing! is a relaxed annual Family Arts Festival held over two days during the August bank holiday weekend at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre and Kent at Canterbury University campus. Placing inclusivity at the heart of their programme and with no admission charge, the Festival is thoughtfully accessible; it’s highly wheelchair friendly, with chill out spaces, noise cancelling headphones and Changing Rooms toilets available. Alongside established children’s touring theatre, premiering, West End and international productions, the Festival offers a wide range of workshops and relaxed screenings, to allow all curious, playful minds to experience exciting work. Some of the ET team were kindly invited to several of the shows on the second day so here’s a snapshot of our Sunday:
10.00 AM: We are still on Edinburgh Fringe time and come armed with maps, digital tickets and sturdy footwear. Expecting to eat cheese and pickle on the hoof, it is with much delight that we arrive at a chilled campus of fields, meadows, open-walled tents, theatre buildings, acoustic halls and intimate studio spaces: all within walking distance. We are greeted by outdoor bubble machines and chalked pavements full of colour and the joy that comes with a relaxed Theatre for Young Audiences event.
10.15 AM: We make our way into Aphra Theatre for our first ticketed TYA show: Puffling Percy by Puffling Productions, whose burrow is currently on an established UK tour, aimed at ages 4-7. The charmingly quirky storytelling uses rich vocabulary, live music and textured puppets (beautifully designed by Alicia Britt) to explore fear of abandonment and celebrate friendship. Created in collaboration with Norwich Puppet Centre, there are also nice links to Mousehole Wild Bird Hospital, and it’s not always sweet or cuddly.
11.15 AM: Back outside into the sun to catch a loop of Golden Slumbers by Moving Memory Dance Theatre: a beautiful watch, advocating rest for working women, with live music and a gorgeous older community ensemble. We quickly pop into a family silent disco grooving on the Gulbenkian lawn in The Shed tent, and watch parents and carers make their way over to other buildings hosting sessions for babies and toddlers, led by Playground Kent.
11.45 AM: Into an immersive old arcade game in Lumley Studio for our second ticketed experience. Drift, designed in collaboration with learning disabled young people and Interplay National Sensory Theatre, is aimed at ages 5+. Player 1 and Player 2 go through gaming repetition and different sensory experiences. The value of this show is highlighted when a power-chaired young person plus carer arrives late and is in moments made to feel welcome, accommodated and assimilated into the story.
12.45 PM: On the hilltop we catch families flying on a magic carpet powered by a piano playing accompanist. Le Manège du Contrevent by Cie Grandet Douglas is a fantastic idea brilliantly executed. Whilst refuelling on the cheese and pickle we reflect on the kaleidoscope of indoor and outdoor creative possibilities.
13.30 PM: East Colyer-Fergusson Hall offers a perfect acoustic for a world premiere musical: Queen of the Serpents, produced by 1Degree and written and directed by Liv Morris of cabaret duo Bourgeois & Maurice, making her first children’s show (for ages 7+). Sparkly, silly fun combines with a cabaret‑esque, glitter curtain, fire aesthetic, sassy snaky moves, plus original songs that harmonise to hit the scale then reveal a deeper quest, full of heart, when the heroine Eglé sets off to find out who she is and where she fits in.
14.30 PM: A quick dash past hay bales and City Sound Projects, around the Clayground Collective structures and architecture of Canterbury made by children, to watch in awe at Anchored in Air by Head Over Wheels Aerial, where disabled and non-disabled aerial bodies hurl through the space on a scaffolding tower. We soak up nature’s views, community coffee and Elysium-like Myriad Luminarium structures over in Cathedral Meadow.
15.00 PM: Yllana’s Trash!,performing in Gulbenkian Theatre for ages 7+, combines rousing percussion, clapping, movement and slapstick as bin-day waste is rhythmically recycled by the quartet from this Madrid based company, loud from the West End and providing irrepressible non-verbal participation for the packed out audience.
16.00 PM: Special mention to Gulbenkian Youth Theatre’s roving performances popping up all day and marking our campus departure on a red carpet with claps and paps to make us feel appreciated. We shared standout moments as we leave, including: scientifically informed child flowers, endearing bendy housemice, a bed full of rotating women taking revolutionary rest, suspended pianos, a shopping trolley xylophone and soothing light cubes. Is this what a utopian world of imagination might look like? And not a Wonka bar in sight.
Some of our participation highlights consist of learning bird sounds and movements for the gull song as seagulls, puffins and pufflings, making a pie with clear repetitive gestures, clapping rhythms to call and response and recognising control when steering the game for young learning disabled audiences; generally lots of non-verbal, active fun.
16.15 PM : We walk back down the hill to Canterbury West station – exhausted and energised by these fun filled experiences and hope for the next generation of theatre audiences – with just an hour back to London or a quick 20 minute journey to a coastal home.
Funding for theatre for young audiences is facing significant challenges so it was joyful to participate in a festival that recognises its crucial role. bOing! offers opportunities for young people and their families to access high quality live theatre experiences that are free or affordable. Most forms and styles of performance or arts participation are catered for in a programme that prioritises developing empathy and wellbeing, sharing stories promoting inclusive, accessible, caring and kind attitudes towards community and the environments we live in.This Sunday, the Festival was well attended by families enjoying free events, with good audiences for all the indoor shows that we joined, proving there is a huge following for cultural activity in Kent. It was a genuinely magical day.
bOing! Festival has completed its 2025 season.
