Sweet Caroline, story of young Sunderland girl inspired to be footballer after 2022 Euros win, to be staged at school

The first in a series of ‘bite-size’ performances has been staged at a Wearside primary school.
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Sweet Caroline and the Football Boots is one of four bitesize commissions from arts project The Cultural Spring. All four have community participation focus, an element of sharing food and are performed in non-traditional venues.

The show tells the story of Caroline, a young Sunderland girl who wants to be a footballer. Inspired by England’s triumph in the 2022 Women’s Euros, Caroline’s tale is told by musicians and actors Paige Temperley and Ashleigh Lowes.

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The first of five interactive, musical performances aimed at children and families, was at Hetton Primary School. There are further sold-out performances at Washington Millennium Centre, Monkwearmouth Academy and Back on the Map.

Paige Temperley (left adult) and Ashleigh Lowes (right) with audience members from the first performance of Sweet Caroline and the Football Boots at Hetton Primary School. A big success.Paige Temperley (left adult) and Ashleigh Lowes (right) with audience members from the first performance of Sweet Caroline and the Football Boots at Hetton Primary School. A big success.
Paige Temperley (left adult) and Ashleigh Lowes (right) with audience members from the first performance of Sweet Caroline and the Football Boots at Hetton Primary School. A big success.

The last performance will be at Grindon Community Church on Friday, April 14 at 11am. Some tickets are still available.

Different shows are coming to Kayll Road Library, the Rectory in Houghton, Columbia Village CA, 17Nineteen, Redhouse Community Centre, Thompson Park CA, St Paul’s Church in Ryhope, ELCAP in Easington Lane and The Forage Community Project in Washington.

Laura Brewis, founder and director of producers We Make Culture, said: “We were delighted with the first performance of Sweet Caroline. It went down really well with our young audience and there was plenty of interaction.

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“Our songs were a mixture of well-known football songs and some original music written for us by Ashleigh and Paige.

“Huge thanks to Hetton Primary School. It was the perfect venue for our first show and they laid on a lovely lunch. We were also delighted to see some of the girls we worked with in our participation sessions attend our first performance.”

Emma Scarr, project co-ordinator at Cultural Spring, said: “It was lovely to see how well received Sweet Caroline was, younger members of the audience were singing along and dancing and eagerly brandishing yellow cards at the right times.

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“Our four commissions are very different, aimed at different audiences, but they’ve all been great to work on, and has each come up with their own unique interpretation of the brief which I’m sure will go down well with audiences.”

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A selection panel which included The Cultural Spring’s Community Champions, who are all Sunderland residents, chose the commissions.

For information and tickets, visit www.theculturalspring.org/bitesize.

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