Roly Poly 2025 - 2026 tour
We toured our show for 0 - 2s throughout Suffolk, Brighton and Hastings with funding from the Suffolk Culture Fund and Arts Council England NLPG. We also offered family sessions in libraries which we call Musical Cardboard Messy Play, and CPD workshops for artists and EY practitioners.
Roly Poly is a child-led interactive sensory show for babies and toddlers aged 0 - 2 and their caregivers, using clarinet, movement, lighting and a large roll of corrugated cardboard.
We perform in theatres and community spaces such as Family Hubs, creating ambient and inviting musical play environments. The shows are highly responsive
and flexible in structure so we can respond to the children, highlighting their innate musical ideas.
The show provides a relaxing environment where children are welcome to explore the set and interact with us as much and as little as they wish. We are interested in creating spaces where everychild can access the show on their own terms. We have small audience numbers so we can react to the children as they shape the show with us.
Our shows work best for around 12 - 15 families. We plan to develop our work to accommodate larger audiences in theatres, playful installation spaces and walkabout acts. We are also available for visits to nurseries during continuous provision, and in hospitals- both bedside and in playrooms and waiting rooms.
Photo credit: Matt Jolly
Roly Poly visited Addenbrookes Hospital
We spent four days with the CUH Arts Team visiting children, families and clinical staff on the wards at Addenbrookes Hospital, thanks to the Norfolk and Norwich Festival Artists' Bursary 2026. It was so inspiring to shadow the work of dancer and expert dance for health practitioner Filipa Perreira-Stubbs for a day, before bringing our own Roly Poly touch to the hospital wards.
We experienced first hand how gentle improvisation that follows children's lead can bring about dynamic movement, release of energy, opportunities for softness, rest and joyful distraction even in such challenging times.
What a privilege to work in this way. Thank you to the amazing CUH Arts Team and clinical staff for hosting us.
Photo credit: Rob Hill
working within nursery settings
Attuned interactions can benefit everyone in a nursery environment. I specialise in attuned, improvised musical‑movement play with very young children. This is a sensory, relational approach that supports communication, co‑regulation and early SEND needs, embedded creatively within the nursery environment as part of continuous provision. This work also benefits practitioners through observation of the approach, ongoing mentorship and CPD.
Rather than facilitating an adult-led workshop, I work with children within free-flow play. By gently observing a child's focus, movement or vocalisation, I find a way in to interaction by responding through a blended approach of musicality and movement. I meet children non-verbally, led with curiosity by whatever is present for them. This practice reinforces deeply essential messages: we are here, now, together, you are safe and you are a valued part of this community; your voice matters, and I am with you. I offer half and full day visits, either as a solo practitioner or with my Roly Poly collaborator Charly. We have previously worked with two nurseries in Brighton, Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, and soon will offer 10 half-days to two nurseries in Liverpool funded by Youth Music. Please get in touch to discuss availability for this work.
Roly Poly development, 2024
devising a musical playscape for under-twos and their adults
Roly Poly is a play environment in which two improvising performers are attuned and responsive to very young children's attention, expression and offers...
It is a 45-minute participatory, performative playscape for under-twos and their grown-ups. Audiences described that it felt warm, relaxing, mesmerising, engaging and authentically child-led; they enjoyed supporting their little ones to explore and interact with us and the environment. In a shared world of improvisation and musicality, movement, micro-songs and games, we discover and delight together in the here and now, through laughter, care and connectedness: ‘everything is ok, just as we are’. Light projection and curious objects immerse the audience in a maze of corrugated cardboard, where children’s exploration is accompanied by playful clarinet and movement. Our performance holds children's expression at its heart. We work with researched approaches, staying closely attuned to children's subtle cues as we join and extend their vocalisations and movement. Very young children explore the world through all their senses, moving around and focusing on unpredictable things. We believe this is their creative strength, and encourage them as improvisers. Roly Poly is supported by the mentorship of Magic Acorns, with creative direction from Charlotte Arculus. This project was developed through the Arts Council’s DYCP funding. We devised the show in January 2024, and developed it further in October 2024, followed by a two-week tour of Lowestoft. We were successful in securing funding from Suffolk County Council and Arts Council England to expand our tour across Suffolk from Oct 2025 - Feb 2026, and bring it down to Brighton and Hastings in Feb - Mar 2026
About the artists: Charly Jolly is based in Suffolk, and Maddie in East Sussex. This is their first collaboration as Early Years artists. We both specialise in arts with young children, and met through our training with Norfolk-based arts company Magic Acorns. Charly is a composer and musician, facilitating community music and performing as a clarinetist and saxophonist with the band Perhaps Contraption. She brings the experience of a classically trained musician, though her practice is socially-engaged, participatory and improvisational. In 2023 she devised and performed her debut show for young children, Beekabop. Charlotte Jolly - Clarinet - Bass Clarinet - Saxophones - Voice Maddie has a background in music, movement, participatory art and clowning. After art school, Maddie completed a Masters in Early Years Education. Maddie began to explore performance with the age group of under twos, because improvising artists aim to become receptive, responsive and present in every moment, and this is the natural state of babies and toddlers. Maddie's work repositions very young children as improvising, co-creative artists. Maddie and Charly are united by a shared drive to protect, uphold and engage creatively with the playful improvisation of under-twos: we are amazed by their capacity to be in and follow the wonder of the moment, their multi-modal expression and their expansive sense of time and space.
Contakids
Contakids is a fun and active class for children and parents to move and play together.
In each 45 minute session we will explore games of contact and intimacy, always with playful curiosity, lightness and laughter.
Children get to have quality time with their grown-up, and be in a state of flow. Adults, you also get to encounter and play with your own notions of risk, 'getting it right' and 'should'! What becomes possible when we relate more to what is?
Contakids emphasises the joy of listening to one another, and seeing where we go.
Follow me @contakidswithmaddie for updates
To find out more about the world of Contakids, check out their website: ContaKids International - Contakids
