Watch more of our videos on Shots!
and live on Freeview channel 276

As a mum of a child with complex needs and challenging behaviours, Kali Peacock knows only too well the barriers that can stand between families and family trips to things like the theatre. Kali, proud mum of ten-year-old Finn and also daughters Naia and Rae, has made it her mission to break those barriers down.”

She set up UnderWired Productions and is now offering her third musical (and fourth production) with the company, a brand-new multi-sensory family musical called Rainbow Rae And The Colour Stone Rescue (written by Kali and with music by Tony Award-winning composer Sarah Travis).

Kali is planning a series of accessible and relaxed performances. And there will also be huge emphasis on inclusivity. Tickets are £12, but are free for disabled, carer and young carer, local families with children eligible for free school meals, families reliant on food bank support and refugees and asylum seekers. As producer and actor Kali says, she really, really is trying to give something away for nothing.

“I am an actor and have been for more than 20 years but when I had my son and my two daughters I found that er really could not go to things together. We were continuously separated as a family.

Kali, Martin, Finn, Naia and Rae Peacock Ritchie (contributed pic)

"Finn could not access soft play areas and various other things that the girls could. I actually took my son to a show and it was a disaster, a massive disaster. He had a massive meltdown and I was sitting there sobbing in the front row and nobody helped me and I just thought I have got to do something and so I did.

"And I'm so proud of the company and the way it has developed. It's become a mission to remove the barriers for all children who cannot access the theatre. We started in an accessible place in 2018 and then we started working with the food banks last year, giving away tickets to families using food banks. And we've also been working with asylum seekers and refugees and this year we're giving away 3,800 tickets in book bags to children who are eligible for free school meals.

"It's not good business practice! But it is genuinely about trying to give something for nothing.

“I spend ten months of the year doing the non-fun bits trying to write funding applications and trying to convince people that what we're doing is important so that we can do this.

"Drama is rapidly disappearing off the curriculum and if children are not exposed to live theatre at a young age then they're never going to make that decision to pursue the theatre.

“We have grown incrementally and we're reaching more and more people and we really are managing to fill the gap in the market that stops children and families experiencing theatre together.

"We want to create experiences where all children are welcome no matter what. I know that you can go to something with a huge sense of how it can go wrong when you are going with a child with special needs, but I just want all children to be gripped and to be entertained.”

Rainbow Rae And The Colour Stone Rescue will play at three south-east venues.

The show will premiere at the Izzard Theatre in Bexhill-on-Sea playing from August 8-11 before moving to the Hailsham Pavilion Theatre from August 14-19 and finishing its run at Eastbourne Theatres’ Shackleton Hall from August 22-27.

Tickets for the show and more details available online via the website https://www.underwiredproductions.com/

The East Sussex theatre tour that really does want to give "something for nothing"