One of three plays in the new Paines Plough rep season, How to be a Kid, by playwright Sarah McDonald-Hughes, explores challenges faced by young carers. Susan Elkin found out more.
Children in and out of care often get a very rough deal. And even at best there are challenging periods of adjustment and plenty of interpersonal tension. Surprisingly perhaps, given the potential, it isn’t an area often visited in drama.
Sarah McDonald-Hughes’s new play How to be a Kid seeks to redress that. Fresh from a premiere at Theatre Clywyd this summer and then a run in Edinburgh last month, it tours nationally from 7 September, mostly to community spaces. Then there will be a run at the Orange Tree in Richmond in the new year.
“Molly is 12, just hitting adolescence and new to secondary school” explains Sarah. “My play is the story of what happens after Molly has been away in a children’s home for five weeks owing to her mother’s mental health issues. She’s now back home struggling to settle because she no longer quite fits in and she is missing the friend she made in the home”. It’s a three-hander play. The other main characters are Molly’s mother and her younger brother Joe. The three actors also play all the other parts.”
“I’ve worked with young people in care and with young carers in the past” says Sarah adding that she did a lot of research for How to be a Kid including online, documentaries and books. “Many young people simply don’t get the support they need. Molly’s one of the lucky ones because she’s been able to return home” she observes.
Sarah is hoping that How to be a Kid will appeal to Key Stage 2 audiences. Joe, the little brother is 6. “And because Molly is Year 7 there should be appeal for older ones too” she says telling me that the play is 50 minutes long and includes plenty of fun and laughter.” She is hoping for mixed audiences of all types including both families and school groups. “We had lots of school parties in Wales” she says happily.
Sarah has two children of her own and this will be the first of her plays which her daughter, 5, will be able to share. “She’s slightly under the target age but I know she’ll be fine” says Sarah.
Having done a drama degree Sarah worked as an actor for a while. She formed the Manchester-based Monkeywood Theatre in 2003 “straight out of uni”. Its mission is “to make work with and for groups whose stories aren’t usually told onstage” and most productions are clear reflections of Manchester and the Mancunian way of life. Sarah started writing simply because there wasn’t enough material of the sort she and the company wanted to work with. Co-artistic director of Monkeywood (the other artistic director is Martin Gibbons) her previous playwriting credits include By Far the Greatest Team (produced by Monkeywood with Sarah also in the cast) and Ratbags which are both set in Manchester and explore the heart and spirit of the city. “Under a new name Sherbert, the play I originally titled Ratbags went on to win the National Octagon Prize,” Sarah tells me proudly.
Sarah is busy both with writing and with Monkeywood. “The work is all a bit of a juggle round my children but somehow I find ways!” she declares.
How to be a Kid is one of three plays in the Paines Plough rep roundabout season. Famously the company erects a pop up “roundabout” theatre-in-the-round at each venue. The other plays are Elinor Cook’s Out of Love and Black Mountain by Brad Birch.
“The same three actors – Hasan Dixon, Katie Elin-Salt and Sally Messham – are the cast of all three plays so it’s a massive job for them” says Sarah.
How to be a Kid looks set to be enjoyable as well as a way of making it easier for children and families to discuss difficult topics – a good thing which ever way you look at it.
See How to be a Kid:
The Lowry, Salford Quays 7-10 September 2017. 0843 208 6000 thelowry.com
Brewery Arts Centre Kendal 14-17 September 2017. 01539 725133 breweryarts.co.uk
Theatre Royal Margate 21-24 September 2017. 01843 292795 thetheatreroyalmargate.com
Lincoln Performing Arts Centre 28 September – 01 October 2017. 01522 837600 lpac.co.uk
Darlington Borough Council 5-8 October 2017. 01325 405000 darlington.gov.uk
Lighthouse, Poole 12-15 October 2017. 01202 280000 lighthousepoole.co.uk
Appetite, Stoke-on-Trent 19-22 October 2017 01782 717962 appetitestoke.co.uk
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond 25 Jan-3 March 2018 0208 8940 3633 orangetreetheatre.co.uk