An ordinary patch of land. A forgotten object. A flower pushing through somewhere nobody thought to look.
These are the beginnings of the world ARCADE is bringing to Scarborough Library this Christmas: a place where little things deserve attention, curiosity is encouraged, and our small people are invited to discover what might be hiding in the everyday.
Running from 12–23 December, SPRiTES is a new storytelling experience for children aged four to eight and their grown-ups. It follows five-year-old Lina as she discovers that a seemingly unremarkable piece of ground contains rather more magic than she first imagined.
There will be puppetry, music, sensory experiences and opportunities to make things. The library is going to become a hidden glade.
But some of the most significant work is set to happen before the first performance.
Across four free Saturday workshops in November, local children and families will help create the sculptures, flowers and props that become part of the finished production. Their contributions will inhabit the same imaginative world as the professional artists’ work.
And when the show opens, every performance will be Pay What You Can.
Together, those decisions give this Christmas production a wider significance. The brilliant people at ARCADE are asking how a cultural experience can belong to the community around it - through the price of admission, the place where it happens, and the people who help bring it into being.
Led by a professional artist, the November workshops will use natural and found materials to build elements of the show.
They connect directly with the world of SPRiTES, where discarded stuff become magical homes and wildflowers bring life to overlooked spaces. A family’s contribution might begin on a workshop table and end up helping to tell Lina’s story.
There's something quietly powerful in that invitation. For a child, returning to see something they've made within a professional production offers a particular kind of recognition: their imagination has a place here. Their work matters to what everybody else will experience.
For the adults accompanying them, it's also an opportunity to make something together, in a shared public space, without a workshop fee standing in the way.
The sessions take place at Scarborough Library at 10.30am on 7, 14, 21 and 28 November. By the time December arrives, the show’s relationship with its audience will already have begun.
Christmas can bring a formidable list of expectations for parents and carers. The outings, the presents, the pressure to make memories: pleasure can quickly become another calculation.
ARCADE’s decision to offer every SPRiTES performance on a Pay What You Can basis addresses one part of that directly. Families will be able to choose a ticket price that works for them.
It's a practical expression of the organisation’s commitment to making ambitious professional cultural experiences accessible across Scarborough. And beyond.
That matters because a child’s curiosity bears no relationship to the household budget. The capacity to be absorbed by a puppet, transported by music or delighted by an unexpected discovery is there long before anyone can afford a ticket.
Here, the invitation starts with what a family can manage.
The setting is important too. Bringing the production into Scarborough Library places live performance within a public building already associated with stories, learning and discovery. For the duration of the show, those possibilities will extend into an imagined landscape that children can encounter together.
It's a reminder of how much can happen inside a library when artists and communities are given room to work.
Written by the brilliant Hannah Davies, SPRiTES explores friendship, kindness, curiosity and the feelings that can loom very large when you are very small.
Its connection to the natural world runs through both the story and the making of the production. Lina’s discoveries encourage children to look again at their surroundings, get outside, ask questions and be themselves.
That's fertile territory for a show aimed at four- to eight-year-olds. A patch of ground can be a whole landscape at that age; an object an adult passes without noticing can become the beginning of an incredible story.
SPRiTES makes room for that way of seeing.
ARCADE, which also produced GRUE, has assembled a creative team including designer Anna Bean and director Rach Drew, with sound design by Nick Granville-Fall and lighting design by Jess Brigham.
Their task is to turn Scarborough Library into a world sufficiently absorbing to hold its young audience - and sufficiently open to include the things local families have made.
After the performance, children will be invited to explore the world of SPRiTES and take part in a creative activity.
Each child will also receive a wildflower seed bomb to take home, extending the show’s interest in nature beyond the library walls.
It's a small gesture that fits the larger idea: the experience can continue through what children notice, imagine and do afterwards.
For MagNorth, this is why ARCADE’s work is utterly fundamental. Cultural participation starts with the details of an invitation. Can a family afford to come? Is there a place for their contribution? Does a child leave feeling that creativity is something they can take part in?
SPRiTES builds those questions into its approach.
This December, a hidden glade will appear in Scarborough Library. Some of its flowers and sculptures will have been made by the children who come to see it.
That seems a very good place for the magic to begin.
SPRiTES runs at Scarborough Library, Vernon Road, Scarborough, YO11 2NN, from 12–23 December 2026, for children aged 4–8 and their grown-ups. Every performance is Pay What You Can.
Free community workshops take place at the library at 10.30am on Saturdays 7, 14, 21 and 28 November.
Commissioned and produced by ARCADE, the production is funded by Arts Council England and Cellnex Community Fund, with support from Scarborough Library, North Yorkshire Council and North York Moors Arts & Culture Partnership.
Tickets and further information: HERE
