A Cat Escapes

A Cat Escapes is probably one of my most favourite projects to date. It originally emerged from the Artist Teacher Exchange Programme I was producing at BAC around 2009. I wanted Coney’s Co-director Tassos to spend some time in a primary school (because I knew it would be a bit of a challenge!), so paired him up with a local year 3 teacher Clare Lound. After the first observation session the ideas for A Cat Escapes had begun, at the centre of them was a book the children had been reading called Varjak Paw by S F Said.
In the summer of 2009 we piloted a six week project in school, giving Coney’s Co-directors Tassos and Tom a chance to write and test a Coney style adventure for 7 and 8 years olds, in close collaboration with Clare. A ‘Cat Escapes’ was further developed via BAC Schools’ Programme over several years. Each time the content was refined and developed.
The end result of this slow burn process is an incredibly fun and quite extraordinary project for both teachers and children. The premise of A Cat Escapes is that children communicate with characters from the book Varjak Paw (largely a talking, typing cat called Jasmine) via email, live chat and royal mail. They are cast as the heroes in the narrative and solve curriculum-based challenges to help said cat escape her captors. The mechanics of the show include a live writer assigned to each class (and in cahoots with the teacher) who personalise and respond directly to the children after each challenge. A twist in the narrative brings two live performers who arrive in class to deliver the finale.
‘A Cat Escapes’ has a lasting impact on the teachers that take part. They report significant benefits from this kind of narrative based learning for the children, and for their own teaching practise. The Scratch process gave rise to the relationships and collaboration between the artists, teachers and children and ultimately the success of the project.
Since the development of A Cat Escapes at BAC hundreds of children and their teachers in, Birmingham, London, East and West Sussex have been helping to save Jasmine the cat. The use of an existing narrative as the basis for an adventure is something that Coney also continue to explore in what is now a significant portfolio of work for children and young people.

Ruth Dudman, ex-BAC Producer