Available throughout the academic year, created for EYFS and Key stage 1
Tell Tale Hearts is supporting Artsmark by offering 2 shows for the price of one.
Cost: only £275* for 2 shows/day for schools in the Yorkshire region (just over £2 per child).
Recommended audience capacity: 2 classes or 65 children per show
*NB. Minimal travel expenses will be added if the school is beyond 30 miles from company base.
Suitcase Stories – Igniting imagination
One Suitcase can tell a thousand stories….. Especially when it belongs to this magical lady. Journey around the world with our well travelled friend as she regales you with tales of fisherman, fairies, feasts and beasts – from Yorkshire, through Poland, Africa and onto India.
Using only the contents of her suitcase (and a little bit of magic) she creates landscapes of mountains and jungles, costumes for shepherds and kings and finds unique ways to bring the children into the heart of each story.
The performance was created to inspire children’s love of stories and enhance their knowledge of different cultures from around the world.
Audience Feedback
View Trailer
Tell Tale Hearts present truly inspiring shows for children that involve the audience in a uniquely thrilling way.
Ian McMillan – national poet
Curriculum Links
Understanding of the world – learning about people and communities from different cultures and understanding themselves in relation to others.
Communication and Language – develops attentive listening and appropriate responses. Playful interaction encourages speaking and role-play activity to enable children to actively participate within the imagined world of the story.
Personal, Social and Emotional development – The interaction is carefully facilitated to ensure children are encouraged to manage their behaviour and feelings within a group, develop positive relationships and empathy through imagination and playful activities.
Mathematics – Encourages use of numbers in an imagined market context where the storyteller barters with the children for a good price.
Expressive Arts & Design – children explore new sensations through touch, sound, physical expression and role play, creating their own imaginative responses to the performance and connected experiences.
Learning – helps children to achieve their early learning goals and further embeds learning across all of the above curriculum areas for Key Stage 1.
Quality Principles
Suitcase Stories supports the Arts Council’s Quality Principles:
Being authentic – Our storyteller is a professional performer with over 20 years experience of storytelling and working with children.
Being exciting, inspiring and engaging – From the first sprinkling of fairy dust to the final planting of the mango tree – your children will be inspired, excited and engaged from the off.
Ensuring a Positive and Inclusive Experience – All children are drawn into the worlds of the story through expert facilitation which respects the developmental stage of each child.
Actively involving children and young people – The children participate through: creating sound scapes and waves, answering questions, going into role, making moral decisions, puppeteering their own monkeys and even acting out a character or two for one of the stories.
Useful Booking Information:
Minimum technical requirements – minimum space needed is – 5m x 5 m performance area + space for audience. Set can be cleared to accommodate lunch arrangements.
Use of benches and chairs are helpful in establishing a slight rake effect for better sight lines. We provide mats for children to sit on.
Duration – 55 mins/ 1hour – no interval
Get in time – 1 hour 15 mins
Get out time – 30 minutes
Genre of the show– Children’s theatre and story telling
If you would like more information or are interested in booking the show please contact us at by email: info@telltalehearts.co.uk or Tel: 07803 724529