Every child attending this performance will receive a FREE copy of The Final Year to take home and keep!
Autumn performances 2025 › Bristol
Matt Goodfellow performance
We are thrilled to bring award-winning poet Matt Goodfellow to the Bristol Old Vic. Matt is on a mission to demystify poetry, to share what makes it different (and not scary), and show children its power to make sense of the world. Matt will discuss his journey to becoming a poet - a road that wound its way via rockstar and year 6 teacher - and perform poems from several of his collections. He will be talking about and reading extracts from his book written in verse, The Final Year, and share how the characters changed and developed as he wrote them into being. There will be time for questions from the audience too. Matt's passion for poetry and 'rebel writing' and his conviction that everyone's voice matters wherever they are from will shine through in this inspirational performance! Book now!
- Venue:
- Bristol Old Vic, King Street, Bristol BS1 4ED
- Date:
- Wednesday 8th October
- Time:
- 11:00 am
- Duration:
- Approx. 1 hour
- Age range:
- Years 5 and 6
- Tickets:
- £7
Matt Goodfellow
Matt Goodfellow is from Manchester. Before embarking on his poetry career, Matt spent over 10 years as a Year 6 primary school teacher. Now a multi award winning full-time poet, Matt spends his time writing and touring the UK and beyond – visiting schools, libraries and festivals to deliver high-energy, inspirational poetry performances and workshops. His debut novel, told in verse, The Final Year, illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton, won the CLiPPA Award for Children’s Poetry 2024.
Praise for The Final Year
Well-written, authentic and very moving
Watch:
Matt introduces The Final Year
Book tickets for an event and receive two free books for your classroom
Free Workshops!
The Children’s Bookshow will allocate four free in-classroom workshops to schools attending this performance with 30 or more children. Book tickets for this event to have a chance of being chosen to receive this fantastic opportunity.
Find out more:
We feel it is so beneficial for our children to have the opportunity to meet authors and to hear them talk about their work. The children themselves are so enthusiastic about reading after these events that we feel they are an invaluable contribution towards our children becoming both skilled readers and lovers of reading.
The details
- Please arrive at the venue at least 20 minutes before the start of the performance, so that you have enough time to find your seats and and use the bathroom. Our start times are strictly governed by the theatres that we work with and by the start and end times of the school day. If you are unavoidably delayed, please get in touch with your Children’s Bookshow contact as soon as possible.
- Depending on the time of the performance, you may want your children to bring a packed lunch. (Please contact the theatre directly to check if there is a suitable space.)
- Parking facilities vary from theatre to theatre; please check the theatre website for details.
- Please contact the theatre directly for risk assessment information.
- Please ensure your children have visited the bathroom before the show starts, or ask them to wait until after the performance ends. A constant stream of children getting up to go to the toilet is very distracting for our performers and other members of the audience.
Still have questions? You can find our FAQs here.
Have any questions? Get in touch
Your contact for this performance is Lana Needham, she will be happy to answer any queries you have:
- lana@thechildrensbookshow.com
- Phone
- 07960 262843