Scotland has a theatrical secret. Productions like the National Theatre of Scotland’s Black Watch might well tour internationally and receive awards, but the country also has a strong global reputation for great theatre for children and young people. Much of that is down to an Edinburgh-based organisation called Imaginate, best known for running an annual festival from late May into early June.
“The reputation of Imaginate is bizarrely stronger outside of Scotland than it is within,” accepts the festival’s new Director, Noel Jordan. “That surprises me, I have to say; that I could hear about this on the other side of the world.”
The Australian, who was previously producer for young audiences at the Sidney Opera House, first attended the Imaginate festival in 2007. “My eyes were opened up,” he says. “Catherine Wheels Theatre Company – one of just two children’s theatre companies in Scotland which receives public funding – were presenting their version of Hansel and Gretel at the Brunton theatre in Musselburgh, and I loved it. I spent many years trying to get it to Australia, but was unable to. That nevertheless began a conversation with many Scottish artists, and I later brought the likes of Visible Fiction’s Jason and the Argonauts and Puppet State Theatre Company’s The Man Who Planted Trees to Sidney.”
Noel has now transplanted himself to Edinburgh, to take on the challenge of succeeding Tony Reekie, who was Imaginate’s director for 20 years. While Noel’s principle responsibility will be curating the annual festival, he’s nevertheless still getting his head around what the wider organisation does.
“It’s a networking agency, and an artists’ development agency,” he explains. “We commission work; we have associate artists who are assigned to us for up to a year, and receive not only office support but also assistance in the making and development of their work. We also take some of those artists with us when we go overseas, because it’s a great personal development experience. We have scratch nights where we ask people constantly to show us new work that’s being developed, that can be then picked up and developed into full scale works that may have a tour that we support, and then may have an outing at the festival. The annual festival is the most visible outcome of what we do, but Imaginate is many things.”
Indeed, for many working on the front line of theatre for children and young people, Imaginate – originally launched in 1990 as The Scottish International Children’s Festival – has been a major positive influence on the development of the sector in Scotland.
“I think it’d be hard to overestimate the difference Imaginate has made,” say Gill Robertson, who founded Catherine Wheels Theatre Company 25 years ago. “It creates a community of people interested in children’s theatre, and it also offers opportunities in lots of different ways for artists. When I first came out of college in 1990, the Festival had just been started by producer Duncan Low. That was the year when Glasgow was the European City of Culture, when Peter Brook was at Mayfest, and I saw really good children’s work for the first time at the Children’s Festival. That had a huge influence on me. I think, for a lot of people involved in children’s theatre, Imaginate has been central in supporting and helping and developing the sector. It’s been amazing, really.”
Natasha Gilmore, Artistic Director of Barrowland Ballet, agrees. “Imaginate, as an organisation, has been integral in galvanising the children’s sector on many levels. Most importantly, for us as a company making work, it has created pathways connecting us with international promoters and collaborators.”
The very existence of Imaginate, many say, has contributed to changing attitudes. For example, back in the 1990s, many young actors viewed children’s theatre as no more than a necessary route to getting their Equity card. Not now. “Increasingly, all over the place, people are staying with children’s theatre and not seeing it just as a means to move on to ‘real’ work,” says Richard Medrington of Puppet State Theatre Company. “Also, more view it not as ‘children’s theatre’, but as theatre that happens to include children in a way that so-called adult theatre will sometimes not – or which includes children but doesn’t exclude adults.”
Imaginate and the festival’s longevity have also helped more indirectly. “One thing that’s fantastic about children’s and young people’s theatre in Scotland is that actually the national press follows it and is interested in it,” says storyteller Andy Cannon. “Because of that press profile, and that of the Imaginate festival, when I’ve been down in England, your work can be seen in the Barbican Studio. You get invited because you’re a Scottish theatre company, and it’s a big thing. There are great companies down south that say they can’t get the press to look at their work, that it’s not valued.”
Admittedly, Noel Jordan still feels that theatre for children and young people can still have, even in Scotland, a “second cousin” reputation, and struggle to get noticed within what remains a vibrant cultural sector. “I think some of the most exciting work in theatre and performing arts happens in children’s,” he says. “We have to continue to keep advocating why the work we do in this field is so important, because let’s face it – if kids don’t come to the theatre when they’re young, they just will not come as adults.”
Natasha Gilmore, who is bringing her under-fives show Poggle to this year’s Imaginate festival, accepts that there’s this added pressure. “In terms of young children specifically, you may very well be their first encounter with theatre. In most cases they won’t have chosen to attend – it will be their parents or significant adult that has decided they should attend. So it is vital that they receive a quality performance that creates a positive experience.”
Performers soon discover if it isn’t. “Children are very discerning and very honest,” says Richard. “They will let you know if something’s not working.”
First published in The Scots Magazine, May 2016.
