From Scotland comes an interactive dance piece constructed around cardboard boxes and wrapping paper; from the Netherlands, an acrobatic circus experience for babies. There’s a picture-perfect dramatisation of a French children’s classic; and a fun-filled mini-rave for families.
From Belgium, there’s an intergenerational performance for care-home residents and nursery school pupils; from France, a comedic combination of burlesque theatre and mime; and, from closer to home, new operatic versions of Aesop’s Fables and a life-changing play about a doughnut.
That’s just a glimpse into what’s on show at the 2026 Belfast Children’s Festival, organised by Young at Art, Northern Ireland’s leading arts provider of bespoke work for young people.
The festival, now in its 28th year, is an international feast of arts and culture, and the climax of a year-round presentation of creative experiences for children and the adults in their lives.
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Since its earliest days, its remit has been inclusive, diverse and all-encompassing. This year is no different, with performances for children with physical disabilities, young people with neurodiversity or additional support needs, music gigs and circus shows, all designed to combat the effects of a world that can at times feel dark and confusing.
The programme is curated by Eibhlín de Barra, now in her 10th year as festival director. She regularly travels far and wide across Europe and beyond to source works which, this year, she says, “bring hope and joy, that focus on the need for human connection, and the importance of friendship and kindness”.
That message sets the moral compass for The Little Prince, a 1940s novella by the French writer, illustrator and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It follows the adventures of an innocent young prince, who wanders from planet to planet, encountering new sights, making new friends and experiencing loneliness, loss and rejection.
This striking dramatisation by writer/performer Toby Thompson, for The Egg at Theatre Royal Bath, brings the book to magical and philosophical new life. After long and considered thought, Thompson decides that The Little Prince is best described as “a friendship mystery”.
“The thing about friendships is that they are in no way problems to be solved,” he says. “They are flower beds to tend; they are sunsets to behold; they are silver river, milky way liquids to dissolve in. They come and go and, when they go, what are you left with? The loneliness the central character feels is permeated with the essence of the friend he has lost, such that the loss has itself become something precious, something found.
“There’s a comment the little prince makes in the original book, which is one of many perfect lines imprinted on my heart. ‘It’s good to have had a friend, even when you’re going to die.’”
Glasgow-based Barrowland Ballet returns to the festival with The Unexpected Gift, a wonder-filled, sensory performance, specially created for children with a variety of complex needs. Artistic director Natasha Gilmore describes the way in which the company uses sophisticated aspects of playfulness and imagination to make this fascinating piece of dance-theatre: “The Unexpected Gift celebrates the art of play and curiosity, taking ordinary objects and making them extraordinary and magical. The piece is bursting with energy, acrobatic dance, textures, sounds and colour, which together create a multisensory wonderland from leftover boxes, ribbons and wrapping paper.
“It’s highly participatory and inclusive, specially created for and with children aged seven to 15 years, who have complex needs. We regularly use playful techniques within our work to create space for responses and exchanges between the audience and the performers. It’s an approach that allows the individuality of each child to be celebrated. It’s designed to be small and intimate, so that we can accommodate and engage young people who experience the most challenging barriers to access.”
Belfast theatre maker and climate activist Stephen Beggs is the writer and driving force behind Doughnut. Directed by Keith Singleton, his fellow performers Rachael McCabe and Cat Barter are jointly responsible for the music. The neon-pink publicity image of the three, enclosed in a sweetie-strewn inflatable ring, gives a clue as to what lies in store.
“It was inspired by Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics,” says Beggs. “The story is an original tale for young audiences about an inventor who discovers a way of containing hope in a casket. He goes around sharing it with people and making their lives a bit better. That is, until someone else comes along and says that they can make him and his invention a pile of money.
“Suffice to say, monetising hope does not go well. It’s all about what’s important in life – kindness, compassion and empathy. Money may be important for survival, but that’s not what life is all about. As long as you have enough of everything you need to be happy and secure, then that’s that. The show tries to show another way of living and protecting our planet. It’s funny, kind and a bit bonkers.”
Aesop’s evergreen fables have been revived through three miniature operas – The Tortoise and the Hare, The North Wind and the Sun and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. These family-friendly works have been created by Ulster Touring Opera, a company that offers young people a professional opera experience, and will be presented in Clonard Monastery.
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Take handfuls of sticky tape, daub them with luminous colours, scrunch them up into all manner of shapes and puzzles, add a funky soundscape, moody lighting and a hopscotch maze and the result is The Sticky Dance, Second Hand Dance’s fun-filled, tactile dance performance for children and their adult companions.
The company is run by a team of disabled and non-disabled co-directors, who use movement to connect with, feel and communicate through our bodies. They encourage exploration and play to stimulate the senses and have discovered ways of feeling, hearing, seeing and, even, smelling dance. Spinning, twirling, balancing, skipping, limboing, solo, in pairs or groups, The Sticky Dance is infectious, free and completely without rules. It’s open to everyone, young and not so young.
In an interview shortly after her appointment as director, de Barra declared her priorities for the festival’s future: “To put Belfast on the global map and make it a sought-after festival for delegates from across the world. To provide a platform for emerging local artists to try out new work at an early stage, putting it in front of international producers, theatre and dance-makers.”
Since her first outing at the helm in 2017, the festival has welcomed more than 202,000 visitors, with 50 per cent of them now coming from outside Belfast. Its year-round education and engagement programmes have also grown considerably, last year reaching 1,700 children in 36 schools. As she embarks on her 10th year as director, she reflects on those early aspirations.
“It’s interesting to look back on those goals, to see how they’ve measured up, to hold myself to account, as it were,” she says.
“To be honest, in the extremely challenging arts funding climate here in Northern Ireland, it’s difficult to find the capacity to look backwards – or even forwards – as your full energy is focused on getting the fundraising in place, just to keep the doors open and the lights on in the here and now.
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“But, since 2017, 342 delegates from all over the world have attended the festival. They’ve come from Korea, China, Japan, India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Turkey, USA, Canada, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechia, Malta, Poland and Sweden. It has also become a key meeting point for presenters and programmers from the ‘home’ nations.”
Culture Ireland and the British Council have given it “great support”, she says.
But support for new and emerging artists has proved a challenge, with the closure of several major funding streams during the festival’s earlier years. Other key public funding opportunities have also diminished, leading her to conclude that “the Northern Ireland arts sector is not in a good place”.
“We are seeing the impact with arts organisations collapsing and talented people, including cultural leaders, leaving the sector.
“It’s definitely much harder to resource early-stage works in development and scratch performances. Still, we continue to take very seriously our role in championing the rights of young people to have access to the arts.”
She is now working to ensure that children and young people have a voice in Young at Art.
“That’s where I’d probably set my new goal – to explore the role that children and young children can have as the festival’s co-curators and co-creators. I think that will bring us into very exciting new territory.”
Belfast Children’s Festival runs from March 5th to 14th. youngatart.co.uk/belfast-childrens-festival/
