Will Brenton

THREE THINGS THAT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR CHILDREN'S ARTS

ACTION FOR CHILDREN’S ARTS CONFERENCE 19TH MAY 2012 @ UNICORN THEATRE

THING ONE: GREAT WORK FOR CHILDREN IS JUST GREAT WORK

At the recent ACA conference we were all confronted with the fact that the majority of publically funded bodies in this country spend only around 1% of their budgets on content aimed at children up to the age of twelve. For context children up to twelve make up 15% of the country’s population. Most companies have spent slightly more since 2004, but the BBC is the only publically funded body who’s allocation of funds to children is actually declining. 

We were asked to suggest three things that might make a difference to this situation, and, as the day itself was a bit of a rush, I thought I’d lay out my three points a little more clearly via this blog. One point a day… 

To explain my first ‘thing’ I’d like to start with a short anecdote (well I do work in showbiz)... 

A couple of years ago I was invited to a well known actors 50th birthday party, and found myself amongst the great and the good of English theatre and film, in fact it was impossible to reach out for an asparagus tip without brushing against an OBE or a BAFTA winner… (a normal run of the day event in the life of Will Brenton, naturally)

In the queue for the buffet, just beside the parmesan statue of Gielgud, I was standing next to a very well known film director (those of you there on the day will know who), we started the obligatory small talk and he asked what I did. When I told him I created and produced TV primarily for kids he looked at me with disbelief and said ‘Why?’ 

The more I thought about this afterwards the more I struggled to find anything right about that reaction. To give him the benefit of the doubt he may have meant ‘Why?’ in the way you might ask a specialist ‘Oh….why medieval wallpaper particularly…’ but in truth he meant ‘Why’ in the way you might ask ‘Why did you decide to join the Moonies?’ or… to put it plainly 

‘Why [on earth would anyone in their right mind want to do that?]’ 

The problem here is that his reaction was indicative of the prevailing wisdom across the board in all our industries, that being if you do work for children it is because you are not good enough to do work for ‘grown ups’. 

Cue the irony. 

So many of the works that we have taken to heart as human beings – that is as children and adults alike – were originally conceived and written for an audience of children. Peter Pan, The Snowman, War Horse, Wallace and Gromit, Winnie the Pooh, His Dark Materials, we all know how the list rolls on and on and on. These are all works that make such a strong connection, such a universal connection to something very human inside us all that they stay with us for life. The term ‘human’ is crucial here, because it includes old and young alike, something adult practitioners are NOT required to achieve. This deep connection is, perhaps, what our very honest young audience demand from us as the creators of work for them – and is tremendously difficult to do well. 

 And yet as an industry we prefer to believe work for children is second rate, practised by second rate people. As a nation we just don’t seem to be able to genuinely value pretty much anything about children and childhood – apart from their value as consumers (more of that in point two tomorrow). We are almost ashamed of them. Don’t forget we are the nation that required the publishers of ‘Harry Potter’ to release it with a ‘Adult Covers’ so that people could read it on the tube and not feel embarrassed, (as if they were reading a ‘Playboy’ tucked inside a ‘Metro…’) 

The repercussions of this attitude go deep. Our national institutions might produce work for children (usually ghetto-ised into their education departments), 'Adult' TV companies might produce some work for children because a flattered Childrens TV channel is excited to work with the ‘big guns’ - but they will rarely put their top talent onto it. In fact I know of one top TV company admitting to using their children’s shows to ‘train’ people. 

Career minded people writing and creating work in the adult world wouldn’t think of doing work for children because they would see it as a step down, a place with no respect, a signal that they are no longer as good as they were. This perception can only prevail in a country where children’s work is not respected. A common reaction to doing children shows is also to ‘age them up’ - to my mind simply a way of pretending you’re not actually doing a children’s show at all….

 Therefore, I am advocating that one of the things that will make a real difference is to value children and the work created for them alongside adults.

GREAT WORK FOR CHILDREN IS SIMPLY GREAT WORK 

 When we start to respect and admire great work for children as being on a par with all great work, then talented people will not shy away from doing it, funding bodies will see the value in allocating money to it, and perhaps our larger, publically funded institutions will see that only spending 1% of their public money on 15% of the population should not be a choice they are allowed to shy away from.