This year we're proud to present (oh yes we are!) RobinHood - the panto, our first ever panto for the festive season. During this action-packed one hour show, the audience will set off on an adventure to rescue the beautiful Maid Marion from a clumsy (and rather snotty) Sheriff of Nottingham. Look out though - we're not sure this particular maiden needs saving!

Drama is an inclusive learning tool and can be used to learn about and explore just about any topic, theme, or story you can think of. So, with World Cup fever on the rise, we’ve been visiting nurseries and primary schools to deliver drama workshops specially created to help children explore the ‘big’ feelings football fans experience.

Long gone are the days when parents or teachers worried that a child’s imaginary friend was proof that they had no ‘real’ friends or that they were displaying signs of psychological trauma or social deficiency. It’s now accepted that it is not uncommon, nor in itself worrying, for young children to have an imaginary pal.

This is Louie. Louie is five and with his infectious smile and sense of fun, he is a much-loved member of Pyjama Drama. When he first started, Louie was reluctant to share his ideas and sometimes sat at the side and watched the others play, but now he joins in with all our activities and LOVES to pretend.

This picture is taken in one of our after-school drama clubs. It shows a group of five and six-year-olds in role as a family, taken down by the same sickness bug. The children were asked to freeze in role and as you can see, did an amazing job of using their facial expressions and body language to express their character’s feelings.

This is Alex. His smile is everything because until just a few weeks ago, I rarely saw a smile and for months, Alex chose to observe Pyjama Drama from the sidelines rather than join in. Thankfully, Alex attends an amazing nursery with a wonderful practitioner, Julie Morton,  who has seen this before and knows not to assume that because a child isn’t participating, they’re not learning. So, we work together and don’t insist, bribe, or cajole. And we certainly never label a child as ‘shy’. Instead, we go about our business of play with gentle encouragement, and we wait.

This is Hazel. The perfect combination of positive, humble, and caring, Hazel is the kind of person you want on your team...

I’ve taught over 10,000 classes, but when I first launched Pyjama Drama, the only experience I had with preschool children was with my own. Back then, I was a secondary school drama teacher who was more used to teaching Macbeth than playing hide-and-seek, but having children opened my eyes to the wonder of a child’s imagination, and so Pyjama Drama was born.

Line up two rows of chairs, and what have you got? An airplane, of course! Where’s it flying to? Turkey, where else? And who’s on it? A dog, a princess, a toddler, a nervous traveller, and a grumpy old man...