the less important children’s theatre companies, such as Bertha Waddell’s Scottish
Children’s Theatre, innovators such as these laid the foundations for post-war work.
In the dramatic literature itself, two works by A.A.Milne stand out from the interwar
years. One was Toad of Toad Hall (1929), a cunningly selective and theatrically proven
dramatisation of The Wind in the Willows; the other was the more original Make-Believe
(1921). Milne was modest about this play, believing himself to be overshadowed by Peter
Pan. ‘The difficulty in the way of writing a children’s play’, he observed, ‘is that Barrie
was born too soon. Many people must have felt the same about Shakespeare. We who
come later have no chance’ (Milne 1922: xiii). Even so, Make-Believe is undeservedly
neglected. It is three plays in one, of which the third act, ‘Father Christmas and the
Hubbard Family’, is a spirited and ingenious comedy in its own right, and it is also in its
modest fashion metadrama for children, with much to teach through entertainment
about the nature of theatre.
The years since 1945 have produced much valuable if short-lived work under the
headings described earlier, not least in the field of documentary drama produced
through Young People’s Theatre and Theatre in Education. Some individual works, such
as David Pownall’s play about American Indians, The Dream of Chief Crazy Horse
(1975), stand out as dramas of lasting value, but much is quite properly ‘occasional’
work, and not for that reason to be decried. Few professional dramatists have devoted
themselves wholly or regularly to children’s theatre. Most prominent among them was
Nicholas Stuart Gray who wrote a series of inventive dramatisations of well-known fairy
tales such as The Imperial Nightingale (1956) and New Clothes for the Emperor (1957),
skilfully devised for performance by or for children, and offering worthwhile experiences
in either performing or responding. It is a sad indication of the Cinderella status of
children’s drama that had Gray chosen to write primarily in fiction he would
undoubtedly be more famous than he is.
Alan Ayckbourn is a rare example of a commercially successful dramatist who has
frequently returned to children’s theatre, not least with his imaginative vehicle for
audience participation, Mr A’s Amazing Maze Plays (1989), but also in other
accomplished works, often comic and always thought-provoking, such as Invisible
Friends (1991) and Ernie’s Incredible Hallucinations (1991). Adrian Mitchell is another
talented writer who has kept faith with children in the midst of other activity, with
effective plays such as Tamburlane the Mad Hen (another play which puts itself at the
mercy of its child audience), which first appeared in the anthology Playspace (1971), and
You Must Believe All This (1981), which is based on Charles Dickens’s Holiday Romance,
and most recently in a version of Kipling’s Jungle Book, Mowgli’s Jungle (1992). Robert
Bolt’s The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew (1966), a somewhat laboured performance by
the author of A Man for All Seasons, has proved highly popular despite its evident defects
—which perhaps indicates the continuing shortage of good texts.
The post-war years have produced two clear masterpieces, in addition to the fine work
of the American Aurand Harris. One is Reynard the Fox (1958), by the Belgian Arthur
Fauquez, which gives to children’s theatre a classic equivalent of Chaucer’s ‘Nun’s Priest’s
Tale’. The other is Mary Melwood’s The Tingalary Bird (1964), the work of an English
dramatist, which is much better known in the USA and which has deservedly been
widely anthologised there. The Tingalary Bird is an absurdist drama, brilliantly
214 DRAMA