The Whale’s Tale

‘The Whale’s Tale’ is an original theatre show for family audiences about whales, coastal communities, and protecting the oceans we all rely on. We developed the show with two R&D periods, before making and presenting it in Plymouth October 2024.

The show uses puppetry, music and innovative storytelling to explore the relationships between humans and the ocean. The story follows Grace, a child from a fishing village without any fish, and a young whale searching for her mother in a changing ocean. We worked with cetacean scientists and several other partners to create the show, including the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, Devon Fishermen’s Mission, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, the Ocean Recovery Project, the University of Plymouth, and Plymouth Sound National Marine Park.

The show is accessible to Blind and Visually Impaired Audiences, with Integrated Audio Description and a touch tour before each performance.

We also created a workshop to run alongside the show, using games, shanties and puppetry to learn about whales and come up with conservation solutions. We plan to tour the show around coastal and coastal-adjacent venues in the coming years.

You can find out more by visiting the show website here

Below, you can watch our trailer for the final show, and the two R&D films all made by Joel Court of Floating Films:

Here are some photos below, taken by Dom Moore from our performances at the National Marine Aquarium.