To celebrate the 400th anniversary of The Mayflower‘s epic journey to the ‘new world’, The Grand Theatre of Lemmings have created a project bringing together comedy and song to tell the tale of Christopher Jones, a local hero, and how he took the Pilgrim Fathers to America in a tiny over-crowded sailing ship.
The project began in 2018 when The Grand Theatre of Lemmings received funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to tour to all 40 Primary Schools in their local District of Tendring with a fully interactive performance telling the story of local hero Christopher Jones - Master of The Mayflower and the local connection to the journey of the ship to the ‘New World’ in 1620.
In 2019 the Lemmings piloted the tour in 10 schools and received hugely positive feedback. Unfortunately, Covid-19 stopped the planned 2020 tour of schools.
In order to be able to keep our performers and freelancers working, and to carry on with our mission to deliver the project to our Tendring Schools, we decided to go digital and deliver them to you as films and a living history resource pack.
The Grand Theatre of Lemmings
Essex 2020 is thrilled to support the digital version of this incredible project which combines a series of films with accompanying lesson plans, specially designed for junior school children.
Visit the All On Board website to sign up for your FREE Mayflower 400 Living History Pack.
Watch the film below for a small flavour of what to expect and visit our resource page for more details about all the films and resources.
TO KNOT OR NOT TO KNOT?
Learn all about knots, their uses and how to tie a reef knot.
WHAT’S THE SECRET GLUE?
Find out about friction and what knots are made of.
ABOUT
The Grand Theatre of Lemmings began as a touring theatre company in 1984, creating vibrant theatre shows with inventive themes, engaging stories and great comic skill. Their work opened up to embrace ‘street theatre’ and they quickly became pioneers of that new genre. Today their work embraces heritage, education and community projects in their home region of North Essex.
Follow The Grand Theatre of Lemmings