Celebrating Crawley New Town’s 75th anniversary, Enliven: You’re Welcome is a four-month programme of free events and workshops as part of the year-long Enliven programme from Creative Crawley, including a five metre-tall puppet who will travel to different destinations across the city seeking welcome.
Kicking off the celebrations will be a day of outdoor performance from acts at Brighton Festival 2022, including circus company Mimbre in collaboration with Disabled-led Daryl Beeton Productions, a new hip-hop musical from Middle Child and sci-fi dance in a haulage trailer from Requardt & Rosenberg.
Look Mum No Hands! from Daryl Beeton Productions and Mimbre, through acrobatics, theatre and movement, tells the story of two friends, one who uses a wheelchair, growing up together and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
Following them, 11-year-old Jasmine is on an adventure to make the world a better place, powered only by her imagination in hip-hop musical There Should Be Unicorns from Middle Child in association with Beats Bus.
In the evening, a 40-foot truck will arrive from an unknown destination with a mystery shipment for Future Cargo. As the sides roll up, an alien machine is revealed and the sci-fi dance show from Requardt & Rosenberg begins to audiences wearing headphones.
Following on from workshops in weaving and comic strip making, Give It A Go will continue its programme of free workshops in the town centre with slapstick (28 May) with Spymonkey's Artistic Director Toby Park. Also, founder of Leap Then Look Lucy Cran will give a beginners' workshop in sculpture, and artist and cartoonist Daniel Locke will teach how to create a comic hero.
Finally, a puppet taller than a double decker bus will be visiting the town in August. How will Crawley welcome her? Who she is and where she’s from will be revealed in May, along with a full programme of events that will run from 11–14 August.