Child’s play

As many artists across England sit biting their nails, waiting for the end of March when they will know if they have got any sort of a future, it might be a good moment to take stock of the progress that’s been made in my own neck of the woods look over the past few decades. I’ve been involved in theatre for young people for a long time – nearly 30 years with Oily Cart and 10 years before that in Theatre in Education (TIE) and repertory theatre. It seems to me that the both the quality and the quantity of theatre work for children has burgeoned. Forty years ago, there were no children’s companies with their own buildings. Today we have the Unicorn Theatre, the Polka Theatre and other spaces dedicated to work with young people, such as the Egg in Bath. Back then there were a handful of companies specialising in work for children. Now there are numerous examples. Some are good, some are bad, and some – the likes of Theatre Rites, Mark Storrer and Tangere Arts – occasionally rise to brilliance

We’ve seen the rise of a substantial group of writers; people such as David Wood, Charles Way, Philip Osment, Noël Greig and Mike Kenny specialise in writing for young audiences. We also have magnificent work by dramatists perhaps better known for their plays for other audiences, for example Alan Ayckbourn. Perhaps just as significant has been the enormous quantity of group-devised productions created over the decades in TIE and other companies working for young.

In the 1970s, children’s theatre mostly staggered along on what could be made at the box office. Now, for the moment at least, there is quite substantial Arts Council England support for young people’s theatre, and in the past decade there has been a phenomenal growth in commercial theatre specifically for family audiences. TV spin-offs such as Bob the Builder, Postman Pat and Fireman Sam stalk the land. There’s also better stuff, such as In the Night Garden, aimed at a mass market. All this is making work for many, and developing audiences for the future.

Thirty years ago it would have been inconceivable to find the major national and regional theatres presenting work specifically aimed at young people. Now such offerings are well represented in their repertoires. The National Theatre’s ‘War Horse’ and the RSC’s very well received ‘Matilda’ are just two examples from a crowded field.

Theatre for young audiences has also been at the forefront of so many of the important advances of the past three decades, like helping to open up the business to artists from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds and creating theatre specifically for audiences which are neglected by the mainstream. Young people’s companies were among the first in creating work for people with learning and other disabilities and were creating immersive, multi-sensory and interactive work long before this sort of thing became the fashion for adult audiences.

I’d like to cite the example of the Oily Cart’s work here. We specialise in theatre for children under six and their families, and also for children under two. We also create productions for young people with complex learning disabilities, including autistic spectrum disorder. There is abundant evidence that specialised theatre powerfully connects with these audiences for whom there is very little alternative provision.

I’m not going to pretend that all theatre for young audiences is brilliant. There is a good deal of low budget and rather unambitious work, and far too many bookers more concerned with the bottom line than the quality of what’s on stage. For my taste, current theatre for young audiences is too dependent on adaptations of popular books, and I’ll believe that young people’s theatre has really come of age when it produces its own equivalent of ‘His Dark Materials’ rather than a stage adaptation of the novel. Lately, there has been lots of very good theatre made for children under six, and even under two, and some very exciting work for adolescents, but young people between these age ranges are less well provided for.

Still, up until a few months ago I did think that things were improving. Perhaps society as a whole was ready to acknowledge our kind of theatre, not just as something to keep the kids shouting “He’s behind you!”, but as a vital influence on the intellectual, emotional and social development of the young.

Now the economic and political climate is very different and I am not alone in wondering just how much theatre for young audiences will be left in a couple of years’ time. Will the survivors be producing the kind of challenging, adventurous theatre to be found today? When it comes to theatre for the young, a lot has happened in the past 30 years. We have a lot to lose.