Oily Cart is one of the UK’s leading theatre companies creating multi-sensory interactive performances for very young children and young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities and young people with an autistic spectrum disorder. The young people who participate in Oily Cart productions are affected by a range of genetic conditions including Reye’s syndrome, Down’s syndrome, and Lejeune’s syndrome.
Monies raised on Jeans for Genes Day funded a special theatre production from Oily Cart called ‘Tube’ involving a colourful, tactile ‘wonderland’ using specialised, multi-sensory techniques inviting audience members into a world of learning and imagination.
Oily Cart created a brand new kinesthetic adventure for children with complex disabilities. In a wonderland conjured up from a fabulous variety of tubes. The young audience members sat in luxury leaf chairs where they were able to bounce, swing, spin and sway whilst surrounded by a variety of tubes; from tubes filled with sounds, to tubes glistening with kaleidoscopic colours and those that puffed out gentle breezes of air. TUBE was a highly interactive experience, with performers adapting to the specific requirements of each individual in the audience.
TUBE toured for 12 weeks, with 144 performances to 864 young people and over 900 teachers, carers and siblings. Over 80% of the children attending experienced the interactive theatre’s work for the first time.
“I sometimes feel that my son is not ‘present’, that he is just being carried along in the world. During TUBE, I felt he was very much ‘present’, engaged and interested. I think the performance was too compelling for him to miss!” Parent at the Unicorn Theatre, London.
“The show was fabulous, it was amazing to see the responses from the children, one boy in particular was alert, vocal and absolutely loving the experience – the tube chairs were fantastic for him as they moved with his actions and he was bouncing and waving his arms etc. He has been quite poorly recently and we’ve not seen him react like this for a very long time.” Teacher at Gibside School, Newcastle.