Both as a director, PhD candidate and dad, BFW knows his way around the specifics of kids' theatre. He's even reviewed White for The Skinny. He has a handy way with a metaphor - comparing theatre to malaria in its need to infect future audiences - and is unimpressed by those spectacular stage shows starring characters off CBBC. Commenting on the prices of the various souvenirs available, he reveals them as simple money traps, playing on the boredom of the adults and the vulnerability of the child.
His point is that the very young don't have enough agency to choose theatre, and they tend to end up there because mum, dad, uncle or granma think it is an improving experience. There's a violation right there. Next up, they get told to be quiet, their behaviours trimmed to suit the theatre (apparently, BFW reveals, there are theatres that have sound proof containers for noisy nippers). And while he doesn't explicitly say this - this is more about my bitterness at a month of pantomimes - most of the actual material is rubbish.
Rather than doing anything to build future audiences, theatre for youngsters is a deadly turn-off. The exceptions - like White - are sadly rare and the dominance of the super-show (Peppa "Snort Snort No Plot Ends with Daddy Laughing Every Time" Pig) is little more than consumerism feeding off child and drama alike.
BFW does have an answer - he imagines a theatre based on genuine communication between adult and child, and certainly not made up of a few patronising tweaks of format. Of course, he'll never make a proper post-modernist if he continues to speak so clearly, and wittily, maintaining a case and offering a solution.
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