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St. Peter's Parish Community Hall in Whitehaven

The BBC is working with young people living on the Woodhouse estate in Whitehaven to create, produce and perform a show for Children in Need.

The project is called Put on a Show for Pudsey.

A theatre director and writer are holding rehearsal sessions in the two weeks before the event.

They will help the young people to come up with some ideas and then turn them into a final performance for the community.

Local event

The teenagers are based at St Peter's Community Centre on Lakeland Avenue in Woodhouse.

That is where the performance will happen on Friday, 20 November at 19.30 BST(Children in Need day).

Entrance is free and the project has been funded by the BBC.

Ben Bone is the writer on the project and he is working with Kerry Tuhill, who is the director. They are both from Newfound Theatre, which is based in Manchester.

Ben and Kerry are writing diary entries to show how the project is progressing.

Theatre Director and Writer Ben Bone

It has become a real community effort and Jason Ferguson the Neighbourhood Warden for Home Group, who is facilitating the event, has recorded the event photographically on our behalf.

Wednesday 18th November

2 days to go and everybody is starting to feel the excitement. We split up into smaller groups to try and work on individual scenes.

Slowly but surely the play is starting to come together. I think nerves are starting to get to people so there were a few tantrums.

I think we have a few divas in the cast! But everyone pulled together to do a run through at the end of the night.

Considering the group have only had the script for 2 days it was amazing to see how much we could do.

It's fascinating to see how far everyone has come in such a short space of time.

Anyway back to sticky back plastic and cardboard. It's amazing the props you can make from old bits of cardboard!

Tuesday 17th November

So the full script was handed out tonight. Quite a nerve-racking feeling having a group of very honest people read through your script, but thankfully they liked it. I think if they had it their way it'd be a 3 hour epic!

The read through went well and everybody started to play about with their characters a bit.

The content of the sessions have changed now that rehearsals are kicking in.

I think this was a bit of a surprise to some people and it took them a while to get the hang of it. But with only 3 days to show time, it's full steam ahead.

It was great to see how people had already started learning their lines! Roll on Friday!

Monday, 16 November

It's the start of the second week (where has the time gone?)

We gave the group the first half of Ben's script and were relieved (especially Ben!) to get a positive response.

People suggested a few minor changes, but the main complaint was that they wanted more lines to say (good sign!)

After a read-through, we got them up on their feet to get an idea of movement and staging.

This took a while and caused a few fraying tempers, as some struggled to keep focussed, but they pulled it together brilliantly in a final run through of the night.

Characters are really starting to come through and the kind people at the BBC have pulled a few strings to get us a surprise guest on the night…!

(Diary entry by Kerry Tuhill)

Thursday, 12 November

A film maker came into the session this evening to shoot a piece for Video Nation.

The group are starting to get a bit media savvy!

Rehearsals for the Putting on a Show for Pudsey performance.

Kerry and I had got together before the session to map out a brief storyline of the play taken from all the groups ideas.

There was so much quality to try and squeeze in. I hope we managed it!

I was quite anxious pitching to the youngsters as they don't mince their words but thankfully the idea went down really well and we're so pleased the group are starting to take ownership of the piece.

The play cast itself and by the way the session went, anyone thinking of coming down next Friday night is in for a right roller coaster of a night!

Wednesday, 11 November

We had BBC Radio Cumbria in this evening, recording some interviews with staff and young people as well as some of the workshop.

Some of the games were quite physical to work off some of the groups energy.

We also played some trust games which took a while to build but once the trust was there, the group really got behind it.

After the break we re introduced our fictional town created in the first session and began breaking off into small groups to improvise some scenes about the people who may live in the town.

The group rehearsing for the show on Friday, 20 November

All the ideas were developed from stories the young people came up with on the map.

These stories ranged from romantic to issue based themes and comedy.

We are now starting to build a bit of a picture as to what the group want from next weeks performance.

Tuesday, 10 November

Session two was really surprising as word had gotten around about the project so we had a few more people turn up, which was great.

The more people, the more ideas. So next weeks performance is really gearing up to be a fab piece of theatre.

Kerry and I played some drama games to introduce the newcomers and then we began thinking about characters that we could possibly use in the piece.

We discussed how stories come from people and each member of the group took part in a writing game coming from their own experiences.

The results ranged from comical to touching, fun and downright bizarre.

It was interesting to see how different people responded better to the writing element than the drama side.

One of our challenges with the group is to balance the writing with the physical side of the project to make sure there's something everyone can get involved in.

Newfound Theatre in action on the Woodhouse estate

Monday, 9 November

The first session was pretty exciting for everybody involved.

There was a general nervous energy buzzing around as the group discovered about the project.

We started off playing some drama games to help everyone relax and get to know each other.

It was really refreshing to see everyone willing to play and have fun and take part.

We then went on to create a fictional town with lots of places with stories and legends.

The ideas in the group were phenomenal and the fictional town started to come to life before our very eyes.

We then all split into small groups and picked something about the town we found inspiring.

From that we put together a few short scenes and performed them in front of each other.