Photo credit: Colin Goodwin
Besties, as you know we are championing and promoting Theatre Pathways into the Arts for young people and highlighting the many opportunities around the UK for them to develop their passion and skills. Of course, those pathways have to start somewhere, with school engagement, an inspirational book or character, or a special person who supports and nurtures that interest. Equally, we want everyone to have access to those opportunities regardless of race, gender, social status, finance or abilities. It was therefore an honour to be present for the J.M. Barrie Awards 2026 from the Action for Children’s Arts (ACA) charity in the delightful art deco Delfont Room of the Prince of Wales Theatre on 12 November.
Action for Children's Arts was founded in 1998 by Vicky Ireland MBE with the support of a group of like-minded children's arts professionals. They value children, childhood and the arts, and take a keen interest in all arts activities for children aged 0-12. The J.M. Barrie Awards celebrate people and organisations who do outstanding work in developing young people’s interest in the Arts. It was an extraordinary, inspirational event, less an ego rub for the recipients as so many awards ceremonies are, more a shared celebration and appreciation of the contribution that these winners have made. A genuinely uplifting event helped immensely by being presented by two young people, Angelina Sinclair and Nathan Hamilton, by the most brilliant animated musical performances on recorder and trumpet by 12-year-old Celia Cahill-Wright, and by the incredibly cute 4-year old Marley Simpson presenting the Lifetime Award which placed children at the centre of the celebration.
It was also a platform for the Executive Chair of the charity Janet Robertson to launch and seek support for the ACA Charter for Children’s Arts, a national campaign to get organisations to sign up and commit to providing high-quality arts and creative experience. Article 31of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states: “Every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. Member governments shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.” The charter states that “every child had the right to experience the arts in all their forms, theatre, music, visual arts , dance, literature, digital creativity regardless of where they live, their family income or their background”. It calls on the Government, Education, The Arts Council, Arts Organisations, the Media and Local Authorities to embed this philosophy in their activities.
You can read and support the charter on this link:
Charter for children’s arts | Action for Children’s Arts
The recipients of the three J.M. Barrie Awards this year all demonstrated a commitment to delivering impacts on these young people.
Outstanding Contribution Award: Ellie Griffiths
Ellie Griffiths has been Artistic Director of Oily Cart since 2019. Oily Cart is the world's pioneering sensory theatre company for children and young people. The work rests on a simple conviction: every child, whatever their needs, deserves to experience the arts. They have created award-winning, interactive shows for babies, toddlers and disabled children, and their families. They create immersive wonderlands that never tell children how they should watch theatre but learn from them what theatre should be. These multi-sensory experiences are highly interactive and accessible, and they have created a universal language for these experiences that connect with live audiences and create micro moments for child and parent or carer. Her energy, passion, commitment to the art form combined with curiosity and vigour was transparent to us all as she spoke of her approach and ambition and the challenges of breaking out of the sensory garden into the unexplored forest, evolving the experiences and connecting with their audiences. There were wonderful endorsements of their work from Sue Giles from Australia, President of the Global Association of Theatre and Performing Arts, and Kate Cross, the Artistic Director of The Egg at Theatre Royal Bath. Their next experience will be SideWays: A Sensory Playscape at the Southbank Centre from Sat 23 Jan – Sun 6 Jun 2027 where young people can “feel colour, listen to light and sink into sound in this interactive playscape for children and their grown-ups that sparks all the senses.”
Education Award: English Touring Opera Learning & Participation
English Touring Opera's Learning & Participation department takes opera where it is least expected. Every year, it commissions and tours new work for Key Stage 2 audiences and for children and young people with additional educational needs. This work reaches theatres, schools and libraries across the country. Through ETO Perform, secondary school students create a brand-new opera alongside a professional director, composer, singer and stage manager. Through ETO Lyrics, students in Alternative Provision Units write lyrics and original music with classical and contemporary practitioners. The current Head of Learning and Participation, Bex Hand, accepted the award from Jamila Gavin MBE on behalf of her team. They reach around 10,000 young people each year and their latest show Mimi and the Golden Touch is currently touring schools about friendship and loneliness. They aim to use Opera to delight, inform and educate young people.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Tahra Zafar
Zafar designed Paddington for Paddington the Musical, now playing in the West End. This year, she shared the Olivier Award for Best Costume Design with Gabriella Slade for the production. Across more than 30 years, she has created costumes, puppets, creatures and effects for theatre, film, television and live events. Her work for children includes the puppets for In the Night Garden, Zingzillas, The Adventures of Abney and Teal, and Moon & Me. She also created the Honey Monster and PG Tips Monkey for those memorable adverts, and Roman Stefanski, who performed as the Honey Monster with Kevin Keegan, was able to explain what it was like in that costume! She told us of her role as Head of Costume, Hair and Make Up for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Opening and Closing ceremonies, to organise 23,000 costumes including 1,023 sets of braces and dressing for six animals! There were wonderful endorsements for her work from Andrew Davenport (creator of the Teletubbies), Sara Putt, Chair of BAFTA, and Luke Shepherd (director of Paddington). We could see her joy in creating these much-loved characters, reflecting a back story in the design, and solving the challenges with artistry and ingenuity.
To conclude the ceremony, there was a brilliant speech from ACA Trustee, Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason, a former English Lecturer at Birmingham University who has raised seven children with musical aspirations. She described the Action from teachers and school activities in developing her children’s interests, the importance for Children in developing their minds through these experiences and the value in the Arts to society. She expressed concern that the Arts was taking a backward step, that successes were being unlearned, and reminded us that during World War II, the Government saw the Arts as a necessary for nation’s morale. There is a danger of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that “the Arts for not for me” and that we have to create environments where it is ok to fail, encourage having a go and where creativity can flourish. What’s more, those environments need to be accessible to all. The Charter for Children’s Arts seeks to encourage commitment to plan, finance and deliver those experiences across the UK so that everybody should have the chance. The Arts Council, as it goes through its NPO selection process and seeks to deliver Art for everyone, everywhere, should embed the charter in each award. In their last report, ACE stated that the known and estimated young people who took part in participatory event in 2025 was 218,139 (71,202), with 536,548 (346,277) attending a performance, and 204,109 (185,304) attending a talk. In total, the engagement with children and young people was 1,012,562 . Given the 2021 Census recorded 10.4m (17%) children under the age of 14 and some of the 1million above probably have been included twice, this data shows ACE is a long way short of engaging “everyone, everywhere” even with captive schools’ audience. The charter sets out a commitment to change that.
Besties, without these first preschool or school activities, or the books and shows that engage young people that the J.M. Barrie Awards this year celebrated young people, will not develop the passion for the Arts or the life skills that participation can bring. They will not look for the Theatre Pathways to develop themselves. This is why the celebrated work and the ambition of the Action for Children’s Arts charity is so important. The support of the organisations of Cameron Mackintosh, Sonia Friedman, Concord Theatricals and Musical Theatre International is vital for this charity but it needs all Arts organisations to embrace this challenge and the Government to create an education sector and a favourable philanthropic giving policy that can fund the delivery of these opportunities. Then we would be truly honouring the legacy and spirit of JM Barrie as a creator and philanthropist.
Nick Wayne