WITH pleasing symmetry, Unicorn Theatre for Children follows up its touring show for the under-eights with a play for eight year olds and upwards.
Last year Unicorn visited York Theatre Royal with Tony Graham's production of Beatrix Potter stories, Jemima Puddle-Duck & Her Friends; next week the London company returns there to present the ubiquitous David Wood's adaptation of Philippa Pearce's book Tom's Midnight Garden.
Directed again by Graham, Unicorn's artistic director since 1997, the play opened at the Pleasance Theatre in London last October since when it has toured Brighton, Salford and latterly Harrogate Theatre, playing to packed houses.
"It seems to be doing incredibly well not just with children but with adults as well," says Tony. "I think that's because Tom's Midnight Garden is a bit like Peter Pan. When the subject matter is childhood itself, everyone has an angle on it, be they a child or an adult: it doesn't matter which end of the telescope you look through.
"Besides, the story is quite adult, even though everything is being seen through a child's eye."
That story, written and set in the late 1950s, involves ten-year-old Tom being banished to his aunt and uncle's house for the holidays in order to avoid catching measles from his brother. Convinced he is bound to be bored, he has a pleasant surprise when, one night, the grandfather clock strikes 13 and he finds himself in a beautiful and mysterious garden. Whereupon Tom starts a journey that takes him back to the time of Queen Victoria and into the life of a little girl called Hatty.
"The 1950s was the last gasp for Victorian ways of life - and I know, I had to survive the Fifties! It was a time when there was nothing for children to do at the weekend, and everything was as Tony Hancock portrayed it," says Tony. "But Victorian days would still have seemed harder to them."
Given the liberating changes for children since the Fifties, Graham initially feared that today's young generation would not "connect" with Tom's Midnight Garden. Those fears were unfounded. "Whatever has happened in our technological age, the concerns of children are the same: they worry about who they are; what they are; what they will become; whether anyone is listening to them," says Tony.
There is another attraction to Tom's Midnight Garden: like Peter Pan, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Alice In Wonderland and The Secret Garden, or Alan Ayckbourn's Christmas season plays for children and the film The Wizard Of Oz, Pearce's story takes children from their own world into another.
"Humphrey Carpenter wrote a book called Secret Gardens about the Victorian notion of gardens as being a place for us to grow up in: somewhere that is not real for us to test out our dreams in," says Tony. "That definitely applies to Tom's Midnight Garden."
The book's popularity already ensured Graham's production would be a box-office draw, and the writing skills of David Wood have been an added attraction. Wood, who performed his own Magic and Music show at the Theatre Royal in February, is the master at adaptations, most memorably for his stage version of Roald Dahl's The Witches. Such is the thoroughness of his preparation for Tom's Midnight Garden that he worked on his adaptation with Philippa Pearce (who is now in her 80s, incidentally).
Tony Graham is full of admiration for Wood's writing. "He has that rare ability to see through a child's eyes and has an empathy with children. He's not doing children's adaptations because he has to but because he really wants to," he says. "He combines his extreme intelligence with this terrific empathy, which is the cornerstone for great art for children, and the other thing that makes his plays work is his wonderful sense of theatre. David knows how theatre works. He's not a literary man but a man of the theatre."
With Unicorn Theatre at play, Midnight magic falls upon York Theatre Royal from May 9 to 12. Performances are at 10am and 1pm, Wednesday and Thursday; 1pm and 7pm, Friday; 2.30pm and 7pm, Saturday May 12. Tickets: £4.50 to £6.50, with concessions available; ring 01904 623568.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article