Newcastle theatre launches family show exploring the mental health challenges of young children
Raven begins this week at Alphabetti - aimed at children - in the hopes of teaching them how to understand and cope with emotions
A new show for families at Newcastle's Alphabetti theatre is hoping to help young children understand and explore their emotions.
Danielle Slade wrote Raven - which begins this week - after seeing her own toddlers going through feelings and wanting to support them.
The play taps into how important it is to give even young children the tools to cope with mental health issues - and Danielle explains what she hopes families will take from it:
"More of an understanding of their emotions, their feelings - to be able to name their feelings, and that every feeling is okay.
"There's ways to work through them, and then ways to keep your self-worth and know who you are."
She explains the way we treat young people has changed a lot in the past few decades - which is a good thing:
"Looking back on when I was younger - if you got angry - as a society it was like 'Anger is bad. You will get told off for that.'
"Me going - 'right, okay, what I can do with my child to help her through these emotions - through this emotional journey?'"
All performances of Raven will be relaxed, meaning people can move about and enter and leave the auditorium as needed to make themselves feel comfortable.
In the hopes of making the show as accessible as possible for everyone, there are also captioned and audio described performances scheduled.
As with most plays at Alphabetti, the first week of shows will be pay what you feel, with reduced tickets available for the rest of the run as well for those who need them.
Raven will be on from the 15th August to Saturday 2nd of September, at 1pm, with additional 6pm shows on Saturdays.
You can find out more about Raven here.