Guest Blog: Niki McCretton, Artistic Director of Stuff and Nonsense Theatre Company, on Children as Co-Writers and Her New Production of THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

For many years, we have been enjoying adapting classic stories such as The Three Little Pigs.  Working in partnership with venues, we have sought ways to attract new families to the theatre, and have found these stories an accessible gateway for new parents to feel confident to come to the theatre for the first time.

This adaptation has been a wonderful challenge for us, as we decided to expand the way we work with children in our creation process.  As the Artistic Director, I have always invited children to explore with us during the inception of each creative process. I feel that their voice and aesthetics must be at the core of what we create and for the creative team to be engaged in the children’s ever-expanding imaginations.  Having worked with The House of Imagination, an organisation that champions child-centred creativity, for many years, my passion for children’s ideas has continued to grow and my own enquiry deepen.

So, for this adaptation, we wanted to take our process somewhere new.  We worked with our commissioning partners, Theatre Royal Plymouth and Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts, to identify schools that would be interested in being part of the creative process over a two-year period (so the children started in year 4 and finished in year 6). This would see us taking our entire creative team to rehearse at those venues, as well as our very special base The Lyric Theatre, in Bridport, Dorset. I purchased the 275 year-old theatre to save the building from being turned into flats and to establish it as our base and as an artist-led, creative hub.

From our many sessions with the schools, we were looking for nine children to come forward to be our co-writers on the show.  We worked with a newly formed writing charity, The Bank of Dreams and Nightmares, for our initial sessions and then our nine children worked with us alongside our writer-in-residence, Anna Murphy.

What was unusual, is that we were asking the children to write and create for a devising process.  Our work involves puppetry and is highly physical. The children needed to learn the process of theatre-making; how performers improvise from an idea, or expand or trim dialogue for puppetry.  Puppets can express so much without words, so how do you ‘write’ for them?

The children came to our rehearsals, were able to try their ideas directly onto the performers/puppeteers and have enquiring and fascinating conversations about how to re-write the story for their generation, their parents and younger siblings.  We shared frustrations of both verbal and physical languages, falling short at times to express their ideas, and they began to learn the crafting needed to tell a story like this in a sixty minute show.  They worked alongside our designer and puppet maker, Holly Miller, and created songs and moods with composer and sound designer, Jeremy Bradfield. 

Our rehearsals culminated in a raucous week at The National Theatre Studios where we were able to bring all the nine children together. We are grateful to The National Theatre who funded them to travel to London with their parents and younger siblings, which for many of them was a first visit to the capital. 

The finished show honours the concepts, words and emotions of these children and led us to create something unique and took us in directions we would never have considered. The children are credited as co-writers and are each attending a press event as guests of honour, to celebrate their achievements.  Indeed it is a huge achievement for each of them, as many of the children would never have considered that they would have been chosen.  Some are unable to learn in the classroom, as they have additional needs and difficulties.  However, the rehearsal room has been somewhere they have thrived! 

And if I am honest, with their influence, so have we.

The Three Little Pigs is touring the UK until April 2024

Find out more about Stuff and Nonsense Theatre Company here.

Main Photo Credit: Ray Burmiston

To post a comment, you must register and login.