The Lawnmowers is a Gateshead based theatre group formed in 1986 to offer its work in the community. The organisation is run by and for people with learning disabilities.
Over the years the theatre group has produced 14 full issue-based shows, hundreds of performances and drama and theatre workshops, numerous films, and TV appearances. It produces DVDs, accessible information and booklets and works with legislators and policy makers.
During the pandemic the company moved its operation online, delivering to its 87 members with learning difficulties six days a week, including all relevant support and signposting.
Gateshead Public Health Team provided COVID Champion training to members of the theatre company and in turn its members have created a short accessible film showing some of the dos and don’ts of wearing, storing and cleaning a face mask. The catchy ‘hands, face, space’ song and actions from members of the group, all filmed by themselves in their own homes, pushes the health and safety elements of keeping safe during the pandemic and has been used by PHE to improve the accessibility of public health messages.
Seeing our members using this technology has been a real success story. A lot of the time people with learning disabilities are overlooked and they have to adapt. They are resilient. In many ways they are used to failing and they push through. The camaraderie and connection I have felt with them has been amazing.”
Lawnmower’s artistic director, Claire Hills-Wilson
PHE’s Louise Harlandson says the catchy song on the video below has become an earworm of the ‘hands face, space’ slogan and has been used by the regional team to get the message across.
The theatre group is also developing a rap to explain the two metre distance rule using weird and wonderful examples of the equivalent measurement of two metres: a park bench, “a giraffe’s neck, what the heck.”
The theatre group also works with universities offering online healthcare training delivered by its members with learning disabilities and has created an online learning resource specifically targeted at emerging healthcare practitioners.
Separately, the group has offered evidence to a House of Lords Select Committee Hearing which considered how the pandemic affected the sector. It has worked with carers to have the status of the people they care for recognised by local healthcare practitioners and to lobby the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to have people with learning disabilities recognised as vulnerable to help their priority vaccine status.
The organisation supported the Down’s Syndrome Association to have this group recognised as being at particular risk from COVID and have worked with PHE to inform documents and help make them accessible as well as having created a small accessible film to push forward the health and safety elements of keeping safe during the pandemic.