Interview: Roustabout on Not Now, Bernard

Forty-odd years after the book was released, Bristol company Roustabout Theatre bring Not Now, Bernard to the stage. Ahead of the tour opening at Bath’s Egg Theatre, the Roustabout team spoke to Red Bus Londinium about turning David McKee‘s flat, colour-drenched illustrations into three dimensional chaos, and why speech, mime and Makaton needed to be built into the show from day one rather than bolted on afterwards.

Red Bus: David McKee’s book Not Now Bernard faced mixed reactions when it came out with many thinking it would frighten children. Forty-odd years on, does that darkness still feel risky or has the world caught up with McKee?

Roustabout: I have read the book with many children in many different settings, and I have never met a child who has been frightened by it, beyond the delicious, enjoyable fear that all humans who share stories know and love. Ultimately, Bernard has a great deal of agency and control in his fate, and children understand and relish this; and the monster that he meets is very quickly, and rather tragically, reduced to something comic. I would argue that the world that the book portrays, in which children struggle to be noticed and seen by adults, is far more concerning than any giant purple monster in the garden. David McKee quite rightly forces adults to face this, and gives children a medium through which to talk about it.

Red Bus: The book shows parents distracted by chores and housework. These days parents have many more available distractions, such as phones. Are more modern distractions built into your retelling or do you stick to McKee’s telling?
Roustabout: We have been very faithful in honouring the distractions depicted in the book, rather than attempting to update it. It sounds odd to say it, but a tale set in 1980, for young children and most of their parents, happens in a timeless past that, like the world of fairy tales and fables, is archetypal rather than specific. And I have yet to come across any 21st century reader who doesn’t swiftly make the leap from Bernard’s world to our world of smartphones and tablets. The distractions may have changed, but the challenges are just the same.

Red Bus: Roustabout describes this as bringing McKee’s “bold, colour-drenched” illustrations to life. What was the process of deciding how much to honour the original artwork versus finding your own theatrical language for it?

Roustabout: During the development phase of the production, we took a copy of the book apart and laid all the illustrations out on the ground, a bit like the Bayeux Tapestry. We were immediately struck by how vivid the background colours were, and by the fact that they followed no obvious logic of narrative, geography, emotional state or even home decor! Something else was going on, slightly surreal and unique to this world. We decided to reproduce the colours and patterns of the original illustrations in our set design as faithfully as possible, in a series of revolving flats that allow us to rapidly change the stage picture. Costumes were more challenging – David McKee’s world is very 2D, and, as hard as we tried in casting, our actors are 3D, but any fan of the book will immediately recognise the pictures with which they are familiar. They will also spot every illustration reproduced in a brief moment of frozen action. It will definitely feel like the picture book has come to life.

Red Bus: Your stated goal is to have speech, mime and Makaton work together rather than as separate layers. What’s been the hardest part of making that feel natural rather than like three different shows running at once?

Roustabout: To make anything feel natural takes a lot of time, so we have worked on this element from the very start of the project. For the whole of the first week of rehearsals we welcomed the joint input of Becca Hulbert from Arthur’s Club, leading on Makaton, and Les Bubb, leading on mime. Speech, Makaton, and mime were built into the creation of the show from the very beginning, rather than as a later add-on, as is so often the case. This means that we spent time ensuring that all three work together and enhance each other. At times that interaction also leads the story – for example we were able to develop the Makaton sign for ‘sink’ into a mimed sink into a clown sequence in which Bernard imagines himself going down the plughole.

Red Bus: What do you hope a four-year-old will take away from this show? Is that different from what you want the accompanying adults to take from it?
Roustabout: I don’t see any difference really. There are some elements that will resonate more deeply with children and others with adults, but the key aims remain the same: to share a story that entertains, surprises, and makes us laugh, and hopefully to start a conversation about the importance of communicating and paying attention to each other. Any story that gives an imaginative context to talk safely about something this vital to human relationships is a story for everyone.