conceived and uncompromisingly at one with mainstream postwar theatre, yet wholly
accessible to children (and once again requiring participant decisions from its youthful
audience). One of its American editors, Roger L.Bedard, correctly noted Melwood’s use of
absurdist techniques and made the necessary distinction. ‘The absurdist, however,
attempted to portray man’s entrapment in an illogical, hostile, impersonal and indifferent
existence. There are no such pretensions in The Tingalary Bird: it is more fantastic than
brooding, more humorous than menacing’ (Bedard 1984:495).
Such occasional achievements apart, the picture of post-war children’s dramatic
literature is a varied and confused one, with greater activity than ever before but relatively
little manifest excellence or corporate agreement about the rules and objectives of the
game. Some children’s novelists have written plays, among them L.M.Boston with The
Horned Man (1970) and Joan Aiken with Winterthing and The Mooncusser’s Daughter
(1975), but these are not remotely their best achievements. Some writers have devoted
their careers to writing and producing for children—notably David Wood, whose The
Gingerbread Man (1977) is his best-known contribution to a theatre of would-be non-
didactic entertainment for the young. By contrast the work of David Holman is openly
didactic, taking a strong view on a range of political and especially environmental and
conservationist concerns: it is well exemplified by Solomon’s Cat (1993). Such writers
have honourably furthered the cause without creating anything which seems likely to
endure. Ted Hughes, whose writing for children ranks with his finest achievements, has
produced competent plays in his collection The Coming of the Kings (1970), but they do
not rival his fiction and poetry.
Some television plays intended for an adult audience have become part of children’s
theatre, either because of opportune casting or appropriate theme: they include Willy
Russell’s Our Day Out (1977) and Don Taylor’s The Roses of Eyam (1976).
Current activity is energetic and dedicated, but achievement is patchy and
idiosyncratic. Some of the best work, with greatest innovative possibilities, has lain in
the plays specially written for the British National Youth Theatre, notably Peter Terson’s
play about football supporters, Zigger Zagger (1967) and Paul Thompson’s Brechtian
political drama, The Children’s Crusade (1975). There is some resemblance here to the
Elizabethan children’s companies: these are works written without condescension for a
theatre of young players expected to perform them with distinction. Not only at this
exalted level, but throughout the education system, recent years have seen excellent
work in the fields of making and performing. Appropriate experience of response,
however, depends too heavily on the chance of visits to dedicated theatres and the small
number of dedicated theatre companies. Too many children miss them altogether. And
our ‘dramatic literature for children’, more prolific than ever before, is fragmentary in
nature and in dire need of the serious critical attention and institutional support which
are given to children’s poetry and children’s fiction. Until that happens, drama will remain
the Cinderella of children’s literature, when it is arguably the most important children’s
art form of all, the one they are sure to live with, through the media of film and
television, all their lives.
TYPES AND GENRES 215