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Pure Imagination

On writing a Roald Dahl-themed children`s revue

Date : 21/08/2018

Author Information

Gavin

Uploaded by : Gavin
Uploaded on : 21/08/2018
Subject : Creative Writing

How are we going to get our children to read books again?

In a television interview, Terry Wogan posed this question directly to the great children s author Roald Dahl as far back as 1984. After noting the difficulties that many of the literary greats have experienced in attempting to write for children, Dahl concedes with the usual twinkle: It is difficult. Very, very difficult.

Several decades after this interview aired, Wogan s question remains a prescient one perhaps now more so than ever: in a world of competing technologies and entertainment media, just how do we, as teachers, parents, writers and inhabitants of a seemingly out-of-touch generation, even begin to persuade young people of the vitality and quiet excitement to be discovered within a modest paperback book?

I discovered the interview footage late one night while conducting research for an end-of-year project I had earnestly undertaken to oversee at a primary school in Hounslow. In my newly-appointed role of PPA cover for the school, I approached the head of year six to discuss the possibility of devising a musical for the school s end-of-year production. The suggestion that the year six coordinator offered as potential subject matter arrived with a spirit of fire and excitement that made my original idea of a Robinson Crusoe pantomime sink like a stone.

What about Roald Dahl? she enthused. Our children are crazy about Roald Dahl. Having grown up on a voracious diet of Dahl myself, it was delightful to learn that the classic books still retain the same deliciously macabre appeal to a generation of children weaned on the internet and mobile phone apps, some light years away from the crystal set Dahl himself admitted to listening to through headphones for entertainment.

I didn t need any persuading. The demands of composing music and lyrics, for me, requires an almost unhealthy level of obsession. And, truly, what better world in which to spend the next six months obsessing than the notoriously dark world of the Grand High Witch, the Bloodbottler, the Fleshlumpeater, the diabolical Twits (not to mention George s ghastly earwig-munching grandmother)?

For four months, I quietly began work on the songs that would knit the project together an opening number in homage to the style of Bob Fosse, introducing a dark yet shimmering minor-key soundscape that introduced a world that was Larger Than Life an energetic country hoedown in which the animals celebrated the wiles and cunning of the heroic Fantastic Mr Fox and a driving rock-gospel number in which George lamented the presence of his ghastly grandmother and began to concoct a marvellous medicine from whatever household products happened to be within reach.

The year six children were given the challenge of generating their own scri pt, yielding some fantastically enthusiastic and imaginative writing. The pupils were given the freedom to freely adapt their favourite scenes from a title of their choosing, or to create scenes of their own, whereby characters from different books could meet and interact with one another outside of the confines of their original book. This gave rise to some wonderfully inventive scenarios including:

The BFG and Willy Wonka joining forces to create a chocolate bar which allows children to select their own dreams. Wonka s Great Glass Elevator colliding with James s Giant Peach while it is airborne. Willy Wonka exploiting Fantastic Mr Fox s heightened sense of smell to track down a hidden cocoa bean, which turns out to be a magic button that releases a variety of Dahl villains into the ether.

Pure imagination, indeed!

The vocal talents of the children who volunteered to be part of the singing core were exceptional, particularly considering that all but only a handful of whom had ever seen a live musical. Fewer still had benefitted from any prior performing experience, yet they quickly shed any anxiety about performing in front of their peers and were soon singing with gusto and embellishing simple dance routines with their own choreography. One pupil independently took it upon himself to use Dahl s invented vocabulary to create a charming Gobblefunk rap.

My own anxieties that I might have been a little over-ambitious in my compositional style were allayed very quickly, and the resulting performance (delivered to an audience comprising of younger pupils throughout the school) was a resounding success.

During a frantic rehearsal period (which, somewhat inconveniently, coincided with a teacher s strike, an INSET day and Eid celebrations __ all in the same week running up the performance), a senior teacher registered what I took to be a note of disdain for the project, commenting, It s a shame children aren t graded in this sort of thing it s hard enough getting them to read and write. I thought of the playscri pts the children had produced and the fervour with which they pored through the texts to reacquaint themselves with beloved scenes and characters. I thought of the Gobblefunk rap, and I thought of the ways in which the use of dance and music and drama had energised the children s exploration of the texts, and how the younger children in the school had been emboldened to discover Dahl s world for themselves. I thought of Michael Gove, SPAG tests and SATs and agreed sadly that it was. A real shame.

I was reminded of Dahl s interview with Wogan.

How are we going to get our children to read books again? Wogan asks.

It is difficult, Dahl replies with the usual twinkle. Very, very difficult.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.

Roald Dahl


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