Benevolent Neglect in the rain

On Sunday I went with Matt and two of our second year students, Rosie and Carolina, to fulfil a commission to provide some drama games for children and a mask making tent at the Notting Hill Jazz festival, which is all a spin off from the Drama in the Community work we did with the National Trust earlier in the Spring.

It earned us a £150, but also helped to promote our outreach work further. It poured all afternoon, which meant more masks were made than games played, but everybody seemed to have a good time.

We're kind of developing an easy going, low tech, guerrilla approach to this kind of creative community work - face painting, doodle tents, lots of glue, glitter, feathers, felt tips, tissue paper, string, sellotape, mess and only the occasional adult intervention. Some kids stayed for hours.

Around the corner were a big corporate children's entertainment company with plasma video screens, funky music pumping out, lots of flashing lights and highly energised facilitators ... but on a rainy day in west London our benevolent neglect and focus on letting the kids explore and make what they want, how they want, seemed far more popular.