A YEAR ago, a giant baby bigger than a double-decker bus was delivered by Bradford theatre company Mind the Gap and made headlines around the world.

The show was ZARA, an epic outdoor theatre event co-produced by Mind the Gap and two of the country’s leading arts companies, Walk the Plank and Emergency Exit Arts.

Featuring an enormous baby, 3D projection mapping, a cast of over 100, tanks, cherry-pickers and a soaring original music score, ZARA played only two venues - Halifax’s Piece Hall and Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park in London.

The 7m high baby was operated by nine puppeteers and the cast was made up of professional performers with and without learning disabilities and a 100-strong local community cast. The cast also included actors from Manningham-based Mind the Gap, one of Europe’s largest theatre companies for learning disabled people.

JoAnne Haines, a performing artist with Mind the Gap since 2011, took the central role of Zara. JoAnne has appeared in many of the company’s national touring productions and starred in an episode of BBC1 daytime soap Doctors.

To mark its anniversary ZARA is being streamed live and free (the London performance) from Mind the Gap’s YouTube channel.

Julia Skelton, executive director of Mind the Gap said: “ZARA was a huge-impact piece of outdoor theatre that was four years in the making. We brought together an international team of directors, choreographers, producers, designers, technicians, puppeteers, musicians and actors; there were hundreds of people working on the project and we were really proud to be the company behind the idea.

“One year on, while we can’t bring everyone together in person, we hope that this screening will reunite everyone virtually. It’s a reminder of how life-affirming and exciting live theatre experiences can be - and hopefully will be again in the not too distant future.”

ZARA is the story of Eva and her mother. When Eva is born, her mother isn’t prepared for what’s coming next; Eva is no ordinary baby. She’s a giant threat to society. The army is called, the world’s media descends; there are protests and placards, opinions and destruction. And there is Zara, a mother who will defend the child she loves with all her might. A mother against the world.

ZARA was the pinnacle output of Mind the Gap’s Daughters of Fortune project, exploring learning disability and parenthood for a mainstream audience. It began with Anna, a theatre piece used for research workshops, and was followed by critically acclaimed production Mia which toured the UK and went to the 2017 Edinburgh’s Festival, where Mind the Gap was the only learning disability theatre company performing that year.

“Throughout our research into Daughters of Fortune, we heard stories that were tender, shocking, funny, poignant and everything in between” says Mind the Gap artistic director Joyce Nga Yu Lee. “ZARA became a fusion of those complex, untold stories - then we super-sized them! It was an unprecedented performance that put learning disabled parents and artists at its heart. I am very proud of this work and am excited to see it again, albeit in very different surroundings.”

Mind the Gap has been creating world-class, internationally renowned work from its Bradford home since 1988, from award-winning tours to large-scale spectacles. The company is considered a beacon for learning disability arts and artists and in recent years has been visited by organisations including America, Australia, China, India, South Korea and Germany to look at best practice in learning disability arts.

Many of Mind the Gap’s artists have gone on to work in the arts, including Liam Bairstow who plays Alex Warner in Coronation Street.

* ZARA is available to watch until Monday, May 11. Go to youtube.com/mtgstudios