Children outside the big top at the Big Malarkey Festival. Picture: Jerome Whittingham @PhotoMoments
This year's Big Malarkey Festival has been cancelled due to coronavirus. Picture: Jerome Whittingham @PhotoMoments

Free family activities launched by Big Malarkey organisers

Big Malarkey Festival organisers are hoping to celebrate the creativity of Hull children with a series of weekly activities as they launch Hibernation Inspiration.

The literature festival, due to take place in June, has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But starting today, a new free activity will be offered each week until the end of June, with a creative task for people to get stuck into.

Anyone taking part will then be invited to send images of their creations to the Big Malarkey, which will be posted into a brand new gallery of comedy, cartoons, crafts and more on the festival website.

Festival director Ellen Bianchini said: “We are obviously devastated we won’t be able to go ahead with the festival this year, but we’re working hard to find a way to bring a series of smaller events across the city as soon as we can.

“The Big Malarkey is all about creativity, so we want to celebrate the amazing creativity of our children and families that we see on our streets and online, which is giving us all hope and strength through the lockdown.  Hibernation Inspiration is an exciting way of channelling that and sharing it.”

Councillor Marjorie Brabazon, Chair of Hull Culture and Leisure, said: “We know how much children and families look forward to this festival and the team have done a great job creating online activities to help fill some time and offer something a little different to try.”

Find more information here.

Sign up to the Big Malarkey mailing list here to receive weekly activities via email and more about future events, or look out for announcements on Hull Libraries Facebook and Twitter pages.

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