February Half-Term Performances from Rural Arts

This February half-term, Rural Arts is hosting two shows at The Courthouse, Thirsk; David Gibb’s Family Jukebox, which is aimed at our tiny potential theatre enthusiasts and Khooghi, which is catered to family audiences.

David Gibb’s Family Jukebox

This performance is aimed at children 3+ and will take place at two venues. The first is Skipton Town Hall on the 16 February followed by a showing at The Courthouse on the 17 February 2023y.

David Gibb’s Family Jukebox promises to take audiences on a trip through his hilarious and often surreal imagination, where wolves roam the school corridors, dragons live under the bed and teddy bears dance the night away at the disco. With lots of audience interaction and chances to join in, David’s songwriting draws from a wide range of musical influences and genres including jazz, folk, reggae, and rock ‘n’ roll.

David Gibb is a musician, theatre maker and author who has spent the last 10 years working with children and families. In 2011 he received the highly commended prize at the Young Story
Teller of the Year Awards and in the same year was nominated for a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award. Since then, he has gone on to release four albums for families, written music and songs for numerous theatre projects, had his music played on radio stations all over the world including Sirius XM’s Kid’s Place Live, and written his debut picture book ‘Too Many Bubbles’, which was published August 2020 by Simon & Schuster.

Thursday, 16 February 2023, 2pm: Skipton Town Hall
Friday, 17 February 2023, 3pm: The Courthouse, Thirsk

Khooghi by Kauser Mukhtar

On the 25 February, the intergenerational performance, Khooghi, visits The Courthouse. Beautifully captured within a toy theatre stage, using puppetry, music and song to tell a story of humour, tragedy and hope, the show is built around a Kashmiri folk tale Saif ul Mulooq (The Journey of Love).

The play, which is aimed at an audience of 7+, tells the story of Khooghi, a red-collared dove who managed to survive for 153 years.

After being brought to life by the Sufi Saint Mian Muhammed Baksh in India under the shadow of the British Empire, Khooghi travelled through many generations and to every continent. Despite finally settling in a new home with a little girl in West Yorkshire, she is in mortal danger from the Hawk and the Hunter and needs your help to survive.

Directed by Alison Duddle, and performed by its creator Kauser Mukhtar and co-star Harry Hingham, the show is funded by Bradford Producing Hub.

Mukhtar herself stated how important the tale is; “Khooghi is my way of communicating my favourite childhood song to my children using a visual art form. Like many South Asian youngsters, English is their first language, so connecting through language, reading & listening is very difficult. People in my community are not used to having theatre made for them; that is why I wanted to do this”.

The Asian Standard detailed how “the family-friendly show draws on Pakistani musical and oral folklore to tell the story of her own ‘culture and heritage’ and its Kashmiri roots”.