If Not Here… Where? On BBC News
If Not Here… Where was featured on the BBC News website on 30th December 2020, which you can see below. You can donate to help fund a digital version of the show and the next tour when it is safe to return to the hospitals here
I’m glad this finally came out but it is really odd to watch this back, having filmed it all the way in February 2020 while on tour! It feels like a lifetime ago. We were so unaware of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic would have on the rest of the year. We filmed this in the last week on February and we were so lucky to have finished the tour and to have met all the children and staff that we did when things were still safe. Within a month we were plunged into the first national lockdown and it was the last proper show I havedone since! So it is a little bitter sweet to revisit.
When things were bleak in 2020, this was the show I remembered. When I felt like I wasn’t doing anything, or what I was doing wasn’t worth the time, or wasn’t enough, I would remember that I started my year doing something that did so much good for the children, young people and grown-ups that care for them.
That I did something I should be proud of. When the restrictions and lockdowns were biting, when I felt bored or frustrated, I thought about everyone we met - the young people and their grown-ups - and how bored, worried, scared, uncertain and frustrated they must of felt. Especially the children who found themselves in isolation wards for months on end. My heart went out to them and I didn’t feel so cooped up. I felt luckier and not as confined. I reminded myself that was the NHS we had to protect. When I clapped on my door step every Thursday for 10 weeks, I clapped for all the the nurses, the doctors, the play staff and arts co-ordinators I had met who were making the differences every single day and had welcomed and accommodated us silly puppeteers in green dungarees. I want to write a bit more about this show and hopefully i’ll find some more time to do so.
Things are looking positive and hopeful for 2021 but we shall see what the year brings us.