Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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An article in the Culture Supplement of the Sunday Times about theatre for children, brought back to me some pleasant memories. It was in the late 1960s, in 1968 to be exact, when I was responsible for the Advisory Bureau of Children's Culture (ABCC), that I was invited by the British Council to go to London and see, at close quarters, what was being done for children.

It was a rather hectic programme, involving meeting people working in the field of children's culture such as writers for children, children's libraries and so on. But, above all, it was children's theatre that attracted my attention, perhaps because this is a long-standing preoccupation of mine. During my spell working in the ABCC, I had laid the first foundations for a children's theatre. As a great believer in theatre per se, I saw the vital role it could play in developing a child's personality. Essentially, I helped establish a state-backed theatre for children which several leading actors accepted to participate in.

I won't go into the overwhelmingly supportive response we received from drama critics. So positive was the response, in fact, that our Minister of Culture at the time, Tharwat Okasha, whose idea the whole project was, called me to his office to ask me a question. One of our leading intellectuals, Okasha was happy with the success of his brainchild but, like me, surprised at the favourable reviews. I remember him saying, "The critics never give such rave reviews to adult theatre. What is the secret?" To this I responded that the critics' reaction expressed a genuine need, also felt on popular levels, to entertainment-cum- education for children.

But I must apologise for this digression from my intention to deal with the Sunday Times article. The piece, by Hugh Pearman, was about the establishment of a new premise for the Unicorn Theatre for children. My interest in the article was because, during my British Council trip to the UK in the 1960s, the Unicorn Theatre was one of the institutions I visited. At the time, I met some of those responsible for running it and attended a number of its activities. I say "activities" because the Unicorn presents not only plays but also child drama, which is a different thing.

For about 45 years, the Unicorn had no theatre of its own, no base, as it were, or venue it can call home. I remember being given an account of the history of the theatre, and how it was started in the 1960s by Caryl Jennar, who had previously started a mobile children's theatre in 1947. When I visited the company, it was functioning from London's Art Theatre, off Leicester Square.

The independent Unicorn Theatre is near Tower Bridge and has cost 13,5 million to construct. As Pearman says, it "has taken 45 years to get there". At a time when building new theatres in England is rare, it is heartening to know that another children's theatre is being built in Bath. The Unicorn, however, seems to be regarded as the national theatre for children, more so because it was built by one of Britain's leading architects. It has a 340 seating capacity auditorium and, according to Pearman, the architect has taken pains to design it in such a fashion as to allow for the audience's -- in this case children's -- access to performing artists.

To go back to my visit to the Unicorn, I recollect my dialogue with its director then. Unicorn's method, she said, was to work on children's imaginations by suggestion rather than anything by way of props or sets. Her philosophy at the time was that, instead of the child going to the theatre, the theatre should go to the child; and with few props, there was ample room for the child's imagination.