Loan Sharks
Too Good to be True (Winter 26)
We are delighted to be back 'on the road' with 'Too Good to be True'. This workshop and performance will be going to six schools in the Sandwell area of the Midlands. As well as showing Year 5 and 6 children, the differences between Banks, Credit Unions and Unlicensed Money Lenders we will be performing a play set in a secondary school and following a young girl who is groomed by an older teen. The cast is Steve, Owen, Olga Hlouskova and Georgie Taylor
Shire Stories
Crave Arts in collaboration with Worcester Theatres
We are thrilled to announce that Worcester Theatres, in collaboration with Crave Arts, has been awarded Arts Council England funding for a new script-writing programme.
Shire Stories will see us jointly running workshops, guest speaker events, masterclasses, script submission programmes and two new writing festivals. Our aim is to find great scripts and to get some of these performed on stage! By opening our doors for emerging, established, and diverse voices, this initiative will create vibrant opportunities for writers to craft and showcase their work.
This is a great evolution of Crave Arts' partnership with Worcester Theatres and we are delighted to now be able to offer a longer programme.
For more information, and to book on writing workshops, please visit
Worcester Theatres website.
Too Good to be True
In March 2026, we completed delivering our loan shark awareness raising project to 498 pupils in 5 primary schools in Worcester and Dudley, and what a wonderful bunch of pupils we met!
We taught children about banks, credit unions and interest rates, and then explored illegal money lending through creativity.
'Too good to be true' is our interactive play where children watch the performance once before interacting the second time and helping the characters make better decisions. We had fantastic engagement in all the schools, and brilliant acting, when pupils took the role of Amy with her red rucksack.
Importantly, children learned about the dangers of loan sharks, illegal money lending, and how to find help.
Pupils said:
'They ask you to repay with more money than they gave you'
'You have to be careful or else you'll end up in a very bad position'
'They use charm to steal money'
'They can act like your friends but they just want money'
'Always report it!'
Following the workshop and performance, we asked the pupils to enter a competition to design a poster warning people about the dangers of loan sharks.
Such great designs, the pupils really captured the messaging well:
- Don't get trapped in a cycle of debt with a loan shark;
- Contact Stop Loan Sharks for help;
- Tell a trusted adult;
- If it's too good to be true, it probably is....
Choosing winners was very difficult, but these 5 posters really stood out to us. Well done to Lauren, Neve, Micheal, Darcie and Maggie! You are the deserving gift voucher winners for your brilliant posters!
This project has been funded by Stop Loan Sharks England and we have been brilliantly supported by Liaise Officer Nadeem Mahammed MPH.
Thank you to Rivers Multi Academy Trust schools Cherry Orchard, Cranham, Northwick Manor, St Clement's Primary School and to Brierley Hill Primary School - you were all amazing!
Thanks too to our wonderful actors, and improvisers, Cos and Georgie.
For more information and help about loan sharks, as well as educational resources, visit: https://www.stoploansharks.co.uk/
ART of Leadership
Crave Arts are excited to announce a new training course available for management teams in any organisation!
'Doing the Right Thing' is the first half day course we have developed in our ART of Leadership training programme, all about the key ingredients for good decision making at work.
We were thrilled to deliver our very first session to Sanctuary in July and to receive great feedback:
'The acting/story drew you in and made you reflect about yourself'
'Really powerful'
To find out more about Crave Arts Training, visit our Training page.
Workshops Date 16th March 2024
Performance Date 27th April 2024
We were delighted to run our latest Creative Writing project, this time at Number 8 in Pershore.
The project saw two workshops led by our own Steve Wilson and the poet Sarah Leavesley. Steve’s workshop was a playwriting one based on the theme of Lies while Sarah’s poetry one was based on Truth. The theme worked really well as a promotion tool for marketing purposes, and we were delighted with the support from Number 8.
Playwriting Workshops
The workshops took place on Saturday 16th March and were exceptionally well attended with a good range of ages and demographics.
Our playwriting workshop based on Lies, led by Steve, was very well attended. We had some great discussions about why people lie and how we can get characters to lie in plays in the most effective way. There was a lot of laughter, and some great ideas began to emerge.
The workshop attendees told us:
“Thank you! Great to spend time in this way being guided to try some new and different writing. Much appreciated!”
“Steve was fantastic – lots of great ideas and time to share ideas as well as get writing. It was great and really inspiring and motivating. Loved it!”
‘A very appropriate workshop for me as a wannabe scriptwriter. It was highly relevant to something I’m writing with a group of creative writers.”
Spoken Word with Sarah Leavesley
We asked Sarah.
‘How was the poetry workshop? “
‘It felt friendly, cooperative and productive, with lots of work started in the workshop being shared during the workshop sharing sections. It was quite intense – lots of different writing prompts and exercises, which seemed to be (mostly) appreciated and necessary in order to have enough pieces inspired and started to produce a showcase worth’s of work. (I think all of the work sent for feedback was started in the workshop, rather than generated afterwards using
the handout I’d produced for anyone who wanted to write more at home.’
The workshop attendees told us:
“Very clear, easy to follow guidance, thought-provoking discussion and valuable feedback.”
“Learning to write against time. Any subject/object/experience is suited to a poem. A good idea does not a poem make.”
“Good to hear fellow writers having a go and upping the bar in a useful way.”
Post Workshop
After the workshop our writers went off and wrote some excellent work that both Sarah and Steve responded too. Writers sent in work that was given constructive feedback. Work was commented on, improved and from there, work was selected for the showcase.
Showcase and the feedback
The showcase event took place on Saturday 27th April. It was a show of two halves! The first half was the Truth part which saw 8 poets perform work, most poets read at least two poems. The second half saw 5 plays based on the theme of lies which were kindly performed by performers of the Pershore Operatic Drama Group. Again, feedback was excellent.
“It was a wonderful event to be part of. I very much enjoyed the workshops and the feedback received about the work I’d created was very helpful. I had great fun at all stages of the process and very much hope there will be more opportunities like this in the future. I found the experience of preparing a script for the stage and working with the actors extremely valuable. Many thanks to Sarah and to Steve for putting the event on. Thanks also to the PODS actors and the Number 8 staff who also contributed a huge amount.”
Number 8 viewpoint.
‘We think the theme worked really well. For the workshops it was interesting and inspiring for participants. It gave the workshops a distinct angle and provided a starting point for the writers that they could immediately relate to that had a lot of scope/ wasn’t too limiting or prescriptive. It also worked well as a promotional hook for the Showcase. ‘The feedback from the workshops was excellent. I’m in the process of compiling the responses and will send details through when it’s finished.’
What were your thoughts about the final performance?
‘The final performance worked really well, we got very good feedback from those that attended and from those who participated. The only thing that might have worked better for the performance is if the poetry and drama were interspersed rather than having separate sections for each. It was a shame we didn’t get a larger audience for the final performance but considering it was the first time we’ve done an event of this type it was a good start to build from’.
Our conclusion
A great project to work on and lovely to be at Number 8 in Pershore. We hope to do more! Big thanks to all who took part and contributed.