Library

The Giant’s Blankets: Storytelling at St Helens StoryFest

| Claire

This February half term I’m performing The Giant’s Blankets at the St Helens StoryFest. The work has previously been shared at Barnsley Libraries, The Turnpike Gallery and in schools and this time comes to Eccleston Library in St Helens on 20th February 2025.

Claire, w white woman with short brown hair is dressed in a brown jumpsuit, with blue blankets over her shoulders and leg. One blanket flies into the air as she spreads her arms wide.

The Giant’s Blankets is a 25 minute storytelling performance for families with children aged 4-8yrs, brought to life using a collection of blue blankets which transform into crashing clouds and twisting tornadoes. The giant uses her blankets to make a hammock that rescues a cyclist, a tent to protect an engineer and a sling for a baby; and the blankets make a space for a wonderful community picnic when everyone returns to thank the helpful giant who has made some new friends.

I’m really grateful for the support I’ve had with this work, from Wonder Arts who have created opportunities to share it in its development stages, from Kevin Dyer from St Helens Arts in Libraries and Theatre Porto who has supported both the writing and dramaturgy of the piece, and from the funding received in the development stages in 2023.

I invited Angela Wilkinson, a fellow member of Platform Studios to come and photograph a recent rehearsal and some of those photographs are below.

Claire peers out from under many blue blankets that cover her entire body.
Claire cradles a white blanket as though it is a small baby. She has blue blankets over her shoulders and around her neck.
Claire, covered in blue blankets, twirls a blanket around in front of her until it looks like a whirlwind
Claire holds a blanket low over the ground in front of her, whilst covered in blankets and sat on a blue vintage chest.
Claire, covered in blue blankets holds both hands up to the audience, fingers all spread out.
Claire peers out from under many blue blankets that cover her entire body.

The Eccleston Library performance of the work is currently sold out, but if you’re interested in The Giant’s Blankets coming to your venue, school or library, please get in touch.

Kevin Dyer and Claire Weetman in rehearsal.

Photography: Angela Wilkinson
Dramaturgy and mentoring: Kevin Dyer
Development funding: St Helens Borough of Culture 2023 open grants
Development workshops with thanks to the participation of: Buzz Hub, Thatto Heath Primary Schools, St Thomas of Canterbury Primary School.

Poster for St Helens StoryFest, 15th - 22nd February 2025 showing images from the planned performances, prices and a link to a BSL version of the information.

The Giant’s Blankets – Barnsley Library

A person stands on a hillside, with their outstretched arms covered in patterned blue blankets that blow in the wind.
| Claire

I’ve been working on something a bit different lately. During the creation of The Many Uses of a Blanket project in 2021/2022 lots of beautiful exchanges happened between a wide range of people and the blankets – they were gifted to a cold baby at a charity football match, they comforted a member of the public who fell outside one of the exhibitions, we’ve had picnics on them and brought colour and comfort to lots of public arts events. As a result of this I decided that there was a story to tell. So with a lot of support I’ve written it, and worked out how to bring that story to life by using the blankets.

In The Giant’s Blankets, a lonely giant shelters from the storm under a mountain of blankets. Travelling two giant steps at a time, she secretly gifts her blankets of kindness and care to people and animals in the town, but nobody notices the giant. The audience travels with the giant through the storm to a place where she eventually feels part of a community. At the moment, I am the performer, bringing this story to life using the Giant’s Blankets which transform into crashing clouds and twisting tornadoes; the giant uses her blankets to make a hammock that rescues a cyclist, a tent to protect an engineer and a sling for a baby; and the blankets make a space for a wonderful community picnic when everyone returns to thank the helpful giant who has made some new friends.

On a beautifully sunny weekend in June, Barnsley Libraries invited me to come and share the story of the Giant’s Blankets to their family audiences as part of their programme of Refugee Week events. The two performances were followed by a stay and play activity where we built dens, created fuzzy felt blankets and enjoyed the colouring sheets.

Magical – it was a lovely performance, really creative and imaginative. 

Really enjoyable. My daughter who is 3 was fully enjoying the story and loved the den building

The Giant’s Blankets has been developed so far with generous support from Wonder Arts in the form of rehearsal space, advice and arranging scratch performances; Kevin Dyer as mentor and dramaturg; R&D funding from St Helens Council Borough of Culture grants; Thatto Heath Primary School and Buzz Hub who took part in workshops to develop and test the story and St Thomas of Canterbury and St John Vianney Primary schools who have both hosted scratch performances of the work.

I’m hoping to develop the project further, if you’re interested in hosting a performance and activity, or can support the development of the work, please get in touch.

At the library – a meccano portal

| Claire

On Saturdays 17th and 24th June at Meadows Library, Maghull we celebrated the legacy of Frank Hornby and the library’s Meccano collection. Families were invited to design and construct a full scale Portal Door to be housed at Meadows Library, becoming our magical gateway to a host of imagined worlds. Using vintage Meccano multiple generations explored building techniques, playing with both small, scale and human scale creations.  Together we imagined the worlds that might lay beyond a portal, with the initial idea coming from a 1930s Meccano instruction manual before scaling up our ideas using contemporary construction materials. The families ideas came together to result in a time travelling portal, complete with whirling rotor blades, steering wheel for setting the gauges and options of which world to travel to next.