Cut Out is Bigfoot’s knife crime prevention performance workshop for secondary school students in KS3 and KS4. Written by award-winning playwright Josephine Starte, it tells the story of Marcus, a fourteen-year-old boy navigating friendships, fear and increasingly dangerous situations, through a format that is part storytelling, part live theatre and part open conversation. It is not a lecture about knife crime. It is a story young people genuinely want to hear.
Marcus is a boy who could be anyone. He has dreams, things he loves, subjects he finds easy and some he would rather forget. He also has a best friend, Jay, and an older cousin Nathan, who he trusts with everything. As Marcus’s story unfolds across a series of voice notes sent to Nathan, students are invited to listen, respond and think alongside him as the situations he faces grow increasingly complex. The narrator pauses the story at key moments, asking the room what Marcus should do next and why. Real statistics, legal facts and information about support services are woven into the conversation throughout, without ever stopping the story feeling human and urgent.
By the time the final voice note plays and the full weight of Nathan’s absence becomes clear, students have already done the hard thinking together. They have talked about fear, loyalty, peer pressure and the choices that ripple outwards from a single moment. The session closes with students writing down one thing they wish adults understood about knife crime, a question that opens the room up rather than closing it down. The conversations it begins rarely end when the session does.
“Adrian was a force of nature and nailed the content, audience, pitch and delivery perfectly. I had the pleasure of watching one of the sessions and he was simply excellent. A couple of the students were demonstrating some resistance to the work, but he disarmed their bravado with humour, humility and taking them on the journey with him. It was wonderful to see.” — Rob Gaygan, Towers School & 6th Form College
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Understand why carrying a knife increases rather than reduces personal risk
- Know the law around carrying knives and the legal consequences of doing so
- Recognise how situations escalate and develop strategies for removing themselves from danger
- Understand the immediate and far-reaching consequences of knife crime on victims, perpetrators, families and communities
- Explore how to manage peer pressure and make safer choices when it matters most
- Build confidence in having difficult conversations with trusted adults
- Know where to access help and how to report concerns anonymously, including through Fearless and Crimestoppers
- Engage with real stories and evidence through drama, discussion and active participation
NATIONAL CURRICULUM
- PSHE (KS3/KS4): Keeping safe and managing risk; understanding the law; peer pressure and decision making; knowing how to access help and support
- English (Speaking and Listening): Responding to live performance and narrative; participating in structured discussion; articulating and defending viewpoints
- Drama: Applied theatre and storytelling; audience participation and response; exploring character, consequence and narrative
- Citizenship: Understanding the rule of law; exploring community responsibility and the impact of individual choices on others
- SMSC: Moral development through engagement with real-world consequence; social development through peer discussion and shared reflection
FORMAT
Target Audience: KS3 and KS4 (Years 7 to 11)
Session Time: 60 minutes (Session times can be reduced if you are not able to go off time table)
Capacity: Up to 150 students per performance session (We’d prefer 60 per session, but understand that may not be practicable based on the size of your school)
Also Available: Follow-up workshop for up to 30 students; peer to peer devising sessions for targeted groups
FAQ:
Q: Can you deliver Cut Out to a year group in each session throughout the day?
A: For us at what point does an interactive performance workshop that relies on all students being engaged and feeling able to have an open discussion become just a lecture that is about passively spectating? To ensure we do not tip the scales into this domain and keep the levels of engagement achievable, so that the key messages land, we must limit the capacity of each workshop to no more than 5 classes. Ideally we’d prefer it to be be two classes! So we are already compromising.
HOW TO ENQUIRE AND BOOK
For us to quote your school and offer availability, please fill out the form below and tell us how many classes you have in each year, what year groups you want us to work with, and any specific dates that will work for you. We will respond to you within 24 hours. We promise we will not ignore your enquiry. Important: if you have not had a response from us, you may need to check your folder of doom (spam folder) as sometimes our emails may end up in there!
