Collective memory

Commissioned to write a play for children about the First and Second World Wars, Theatre correspondent Nick Ahad learnt a lot from his target audience.

Radio: like TV, only the pictures are better. A cliché, perhaps, but true nonetheless.

Hollywood might have made advances that stagger the viewer, but the advances aren’t quite beyond what we can dream. The pictures in our heads will always remain a leap and bound beyond what can be put on the screen.

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Understanding this was the key to unlocking my latest play which premiered at Bradford Playhouse last night.

Commissioned to write a play for nine and ten year olds by BBC Radio Leeds, the station editor wanted a half hour drama that would bring to life the First and Second World Wars for a younger generation. The play was due to be part of a project BBC Radio Leeds is running called Children of the Somme. Ahead of the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, the radio station has been working with two schools, Farnham Primary School in Bradford and Cullingworth Village Primary. The Bradford school’s pupils are predominantly Asian, the Cullingworth pupils predominantly white. All, the Children of the Somme project has taught them, will have some familial stake in the two world wars whether they realise it or not.

Bearing in mind that my audience was to be primary school children, I began by writing something fairly earnest and not too complex: it’s the first time I’ve written for such a young age group in almost a decade. Then I had the terrifying privilege of running a couple of workshops at the schools for BBC Radio Leeds.

They were an eye opener. My role was to explain my job as a writer for TV and theatre. I started simply, trying to get the children to understand the basics of how to tell a story. It took about five minutes for me to realise that I was pitching to an audience more sophisticated than I was prepared for. ‘What does every story need?’ I asked, having laid the groundwork for the children to give the simple answer ‘a hero’. “A story needs a hero to have a quest”; “The hero needs to have a problem they have to overcome”; “You need to have someone or something to stop the hero achieving his goal.”

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All these answers, offered by nine and ten year olds in the workshops, are absolutely correct. I remember learning all of the above three weeks into a professional screenwriting course.

The level of understanding these children have when it comes to the mechanics of telling a story is off the charts. Pixar has a lot to answer for. I went back to the drawing board. The play I ended up writing, Coming Home Together, is, I hope, a far more complex piece of work. It became a sci-fi time-travel adventure that ‘borrows’ heavily from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Back to the Future and the like.

The heroes of the story, Hasan, Toby, Maryam and Safa find themselves propelled backwards and forwards in time to the First and Second World Wars. Together, they have to try and work out how they are going to get back to their school playground in Bradford.

Last night’s premiere was attended by an invited audience, but you will get the chance to hear the play when it’s broadcast over Christmas by BBC radio Leeds.

I hope when you hear it you think the pictures are good.