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A Word On Whenever
Despite the fact that I've written - well, I'm beginning to forget the
number now but I have a vague feeling that I'm rapidly catching up with my
own age - a great number of plays, I always get a special frisson when it
comes to writing one of my children's shows, or as I prefer to call them, my
family shows.
Writing to involve a younger audience, often including five and even four
year olds, does present its own special problems, of course. As I'm fond of
saying, practically everything required for a successful adult show - strong
plotting, interesting character development, emotional variation, thought
provoking ideas - is needed in the younger counterpart, only twice as much.
In addition what makes the task especially difficult is that I invariably
try to create something that might involve the parents and even the
grandparents.
When my own sons were growing up I faced that deep frustration, experienced
I'm sure by most parents wanting to introduce their children to the joys of
live theatre, namely that there appeared to be little or nothing it seemed
that all of us could sit through and enjoy together.
On offer was either the (by far the least preferable) commercial panto
geared almost exclusively to adults with its stream of snide knowingness and
double entendres. How irritating for the average child, sitting in a roomful
of giggling adults and wondering what the joke is. Or, on the other hand
(and only slightly more preferable) one of those hearty in-your-face shows,
presumably intended for children,
played at deafening volume by largely inexperienced actors dispensing the
coarsest, remorseless, unfunniest of comedy. Surely, I reasoned, there must
be something other than this to offer?
I have tried in all the family plays to be as fair as I can. I have tried to
write what I think would interest and involve children. Yet I have also
tried never to write down to them. They are, of course, not an audience that
responds well to being patronised - and certainly never to being
underestimated. Better I reason that you include a word that they might not
understand, rather than one that they think of before the character does.
Whenever is my first full-length collaboration with composer Denis
King. There are no prizes for spotting that, on one level, it owes a debt of
gratitude to Frank L. Baum. It also owes a bit to H.G. Wells and Isaac
Asimov and Albert Einstein. But then, if you must borrow, always borrow from
the best. I hope its narrative is strong enough to keep our young audience
in its seat, besides proving simple enough for even mere adults to enjoy -
with or without a child to explain it to them.
Alan Ayckbourn, 2000
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