A World Once Wonderful

The world wasn’t always this way. Or so the stories say….

A World Once Wonderful was the culmination of a year spent with our Young Wonders exploring environmental themes and the impact our choices have on the world around us.

The story is set in a future where nature has vanished and rubbish blankets the land. A group of Reclaimers travel through the remains of what once was, carrying only remnants of the past and a fragile hope for something green, following a rumour of a green shoot, a spark of life. Along the way they meet forgotten relics, bring stories to life through puppetry, and uncover the truth of the world left behind.

To bring it to the stage, we worked with artist Michelle Wren, who helped the group create the show’s shadow theatre and shadow puppetry. Working with light, shadow and hand-crafted puppets gave the young people a way to hold enormous ideas , loss, waste, hope, in their own hands.

In July, the Young Wonders performed A World Once Wonderful twice in one day at the Deafness Resource Centre in St Helens, to an audience of family, friends and invited guests. It’s a production about what might be lost… and what we still have the chance to save.

This project was funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and made possible by National Lottery players. Lead illustration by Macy Lee.