I had a good time in the theatre the other day. Actually, it wasn’t just a
good time, it was a bloody marvellous time, a sheer joy — and how often can
even the most fervent theatregoer say that? I saw a show that touched the
parts that drama doesn’t often reach.
A thousand of us — an eye-opening cross section of society — sat in the dark
together and watched a story unfold with pace, energy, clarity and plenty of
jokes. We identified with the characters and we cared deeply about their
adventure. At the end we all cheered. In fact, the person next to me stood
on his seat waving and screaming so much that I thought he was going to be
sick.
His mum told him off, but he was only 3, and he had just seen the Tweenies
live for the first time. It must have been good, because hundreds of
toddlers not only stayed in their seats, they were on the edge of them for
well over an hour. We had been captivated by the world premiere of the
fabric four’s new show, The Enchanted Toyshop, in unlovely
Dartford in Kent.
As any bleary-eyed parent will tell you, The Tweenies television show
follows the characters Fizz, Jake, Bella and Milo as they bounce around,
singing and getting into gentle scrapes in a colourful daycare centre. While
not quite a hit on the scale of Teletubbies — the BBC’s
biggest-selling programme to date — nonetheless 390 episodes have been made
since it had its debut in 1999. It’s a simple set-up, heavy on songs but
constructed with uncommon care.
The creators Will Brenton and Ian Lachlan came up with the idea after Brenton
noticed his young daughter getting as much out of a blues number on
television as he did. They boiled 40 original character ideas down to the
main four, ensuring that each had a clear identity — Fizz is girlie; Milo
blokeish; Bella bossy; Jake innocent — but that the characterisation was
rich enough to allow for the kind of contrary behaviour that lesser
children’s shows don’t permit. (Fizz may be girlie, but she also likes
lizards and whizzing down slides. OK, it’s not Chekhov, but there’s enough
going on to sustain grown-up as well as children’s interest.)
The Tweenies have already embarked on song-based arena tours — and will do so
again, says Brenton — loosely modelled on Bruce Springsteen’s stadium sets.
The Enchanted Toyshop, though, is the first proper
sit-down-watch-and-listen theatre show that the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC
Worldwide, has sanctioned.
It’s a show for the nippers, no question. But a few minutes in, I found
myself dropping any amused detachment and just getting wrapped up in it. It
follows the basics of mythical storytelling: after some of the usual banter
in their ordinary world, the Tweenies get a call to adventure to face their
fears in a mythical toyshop. And, depending on the degree to which you
identify with them, you face their fears beside them: I related particularly
strongly to Milo’s resistance to new experience, for instance.
Brenton and Lachlan, who have also written and directed the stage show, know
that there is no tougher audience to please than the underfours. This
audience simply won’t put up with artful but aimless doodling around. Not
even from Doodles the dog.
Standards have to be sky-high — Toddlers have bulls*** detectors undulled by
footling adult worries about how much they’ve spent or how many four-star
reviews it’s received. “It’s the most demanding and rewarding job in show
business,” says Peter Sowerbutts, an actor who went for a one-off job at the
Polka Theatre for children in Wimbledon, then stayed for ten years. “A
three-year-old can sniff out dishonesty in seconds.
“One afternoon at the start of a show, the cast were on automatic pilot.
Within a minute a small boy just stood up and shouted: ‘Is this going to
take long?’ We were found out. But if you remember to tell them a story
simply and honestly with commitment, then it is a joy to see their
imaginations ignite. Show them a cardboard box, they shout ‘ship’. You miss
the honesty and imaginative leaps when you return to adult theatre.”
That’s why the Tweenies show was so refreshing. Mums and dads get to work out
the long-forgotten honesty and imagination muscles. As I looked around me in
Dartford, many of the adults were as absorbed as the kids — and a great deal
more absorbed than the last time I went to the West End. As the Tweenies
producer, Craig Stanley, points out: “Grown-ups make up nearly half of our
audience, but the things that draw in the children seem to work for their
parents.” It looks to me as if theatre for young children can show the rest
of theatre the way to go.
Grown-up theatre could do with more honesty and imagination. It could do with
a few more of those tingles of anticipation that you get when you don’t know
where the evening’s going but you want to go there anyway. Tom Morris, an
associate director at the National Theatre, has spent years making and
mentoring adult theatre where a childlike sense of imagination is king. He
helped to develop the National’s big Christmas hit Coram Boy —
arguably a great entertainment rather than a great play, this tale of lost
love, oppressed orphans and Handel’s Messiah featured
storytelling on a vast and inimitably theatrical scale. “Play and
discovery,” Morris says, “make theatre less like a poor live recreation of
television and cinema.”
The Tweenies offer spade-loads of play and discovery, but they also have
hefty amounts of audience good-will before they even skip on stage. What
about those who don’t have this head start?
Morris is quick to credit an enlightened public sector funding policy that
encourages smaller, more experimental children’s theatre using
improvisation, interactivity and site-specific locations to push the
boundaries of the imagination. Companies such as Fevered Sleep and the
innovators Sue Buckmaster and Guy Dartnell — whose show Oogly Boogly
, co-created with Morris, caters for 12 to 18-month-olds — have benefited
from such funding. And their shows for older children have made their mark
on the adult work that Morris encourages.
During his years running BAC in South London he was influenced by working
with the children’s theatre director Carl Heap. Heap, says Morris, believes
that “adventure and the den-making instinct are vital for all ages”. So
together they’ve staged chariot races in Ben-Hur and football
games in World Cup Final 1966. Their latest collaboration, St
George and the Dragon, currently at the Lyric in Hammersmith, gets
volunteers to come on stage to take part in the Siege of Antioch.
At the National Morris is working with Kneehigh Theatre on an adaptation of
Powell and Pressburger’s classic film A Matter of Life and Death
that opens next month. The Cornwall company started out by performing what
the co-director Mike Shepherd describes as “daylight theatre for children”
in school halls. This is surely the ultimate test for seeing what makes a
good live show. “To avoid being ignored,” says Shepherd, “you have to
acknowledge that the performer and the audience are all in the same room at
the same time. You can either scream and chuck sweets or face them and tell
them a good story. This is exactly what we try to do now at the National for
adults.”
So good imaginative storytelling theatre for the very young is already
influencing some of the most interesting adult shows in the not-for-profit
sector. The significance of The Enchanted Toyshop is that a highly
popular brand is playing to large audiences in the harsher, unsubsidised
commercial sector all over the country without sacrificing any of the key
ingredients. There was certainly no sweet-chucking in Dartford. The staging
was simple. The story was allowed to unfold.
The BBC has plans for more intimate theatre shows for its television
characters, but its resources are huge. What about provincial theatres that
don’t have big budgets or public funding? Recently, at the marvellous
Komedia in Brighton, I saw one of the best pieces of theatre that I’ve yet
encountered. It’s called Shoe Baby, created by a new company
called Long Nose Puppets. It’s as entertaining as The Enchanted
Toyshop, but is an even richer experience, possibly because it’s more
intimate and suitable for even younger children.
Shoe Baby , adapted from Joyce Dunbar’s book, is a story about a baby
who leaves the immobile world of babyhood to go on a weird and wonderful
toddler adventure in a shoe. It appears simple. The stagecraft and music
(the latter by Tom Gray of the band Gomez), both integral to the story, feel
homemade but are intricately crafted. The show combines simplicity,
complexity and the surreal — with a very scary moment involving some giants.
Parents are as transfixed as their children, some of whom are just over a
year old. It was not only the most imaginative but the most philosophical
piece of theatre I’d seen in ages.
Perhaps I am edging into Pseud’s Corner by thinking this. Not according to
Tony Chapman, the artistic director of the Unicorn children’s theatre,
situated just along the South Bank from the National Theatre. “Young
children are the greatest philosophers,” he says. “And as long as you engage
the imagination of any audience with visual, aural and physical
storytelling, then you can be as complex and enigmatic as you like.”
A lot of adults get put off theatre by worries about cost and accessibility.
But see a good children’s show and you get a welcome reminder of what it’s
all about. Whether it involves telly names or not, whether it’s on the
Fringe or in an arena, it’s about story and spectacle, compelling characters
and a connection between performer and audience. Adult theatre certainly has
a lot to learn.
The Tweenies in The Enchanted Toyshop is on tour (www.
tweenieslive.com). Next show is on Wed at the Londonderry Millennium
Forum (028-7126 4455). Shoe Baby is also on tour (www.longnosepuppets.com).
The next show is on Sat at the Polka Theatre, SW19 (020-8453 4888).
TODDLERS’ TREATS
Oogly Boogly
Eight toddlers and four performers make shapes together in a small tent. For
12 to 18-month-olds. www.ooglyboogly.org.uk
Lyngo
CBeebies star Patrick Lynch performs shows in which everyday objects are
transformed into characters in stories. www.lyngo.co.uk
Oily Cart
Specialists in under-fives theatre since 1981. Shows include Baby Balloon
(for the undertwos). www.oilycart.org.uk
Indefinite Articles
Claytime, the new show from Steve Tiplady’s company, mixes clay
modelling and storytelling. www.quicksilvertheatre.
org/news.asp
Children’s International Theatre Festival
Playing around Scotland in May and June, shows include Baby Rave and
Clown, an adaptation of Quentin Blake’s book. www.imaginate.org.uk
