Main content

When Words Fail, Music Speaks

School pupils with complex educational needs and professional musicians create and perform an original show together. From 2017.

School pupils with complex educational needs take part in an extraordinary musical collaboration with professional musicians.

Producer Peter Curran and mainstream schoolteacher Blanche Girouard capture the process - as William Carslake and Patrick Stockbridge help the pupils to create and perform an original show together.

They have just 48 hours beginning from scratch, before a performance in front of the whole school. We hear the thoughts and reactions of pupils and composers as they put their shoulders to the task.

A musical is developed about food, the senses, and being lost in the jungle. It's a noisy, funny and inspirational process.

It鈥檚 also a powerful illustration of the skills and effort by dedicated teachers and carers at the school in Telford, as they shape classes and creative experiences around the changing, often complex needs of each young person in their care.

Producer: Peter Curran

A Foghorn Company production for 麻豆社 Radio 4, first broadcast in December 2017.

Available now

30 minutes

Last on

Fri 30 Jan 2026 00:30

Broadcasts

  • Tue 5 Dec 2017 11:30
  • Sun 11 Feb 2018 13:30
  • Thu 29 Jan 2026 10:30
  • Thu 29 Jan 2026 16:30
  • Fri 30 Jan 2026 00:30

Featured in...