Episode 2 - Seeing the World Through a Child's Eyes: A Conversation with Emma Boor

Inspired by the TORCH event, 'Reading Choices in Young and SEND Children: A Conversation,' this episode explores how accessible forms of theatre, puppetry and performance can spark children’s interest in reading and storytelling. 

I’m joined by Emma Boor, Creative Director of Wild Boor Ideas, to discuss the visceral responses that theatre often invites. We explore how interactive, sensory-based approaches can make theatre more accessible and enjoyable for SEND audiences. The immediacy of responses to children’s theatre opens performance up to something that lies beyond the written page as it refuses containment within scripts or rehearsed acts. We consider how this real-time unfolding of children’s theatre turns the stage into a kind of playground where the imagination runs free, as the mind transforms even the most mundane objects into entire worlds that spark wonder. The very act of storytelling becomes a gift, one that can be packaged and repackaged, opened and repurposed. We draw unexpected connections between Old English kennings and the sort of wordplay found in theatre and in children’s language, before turning to the problem of the impact of AI on literacy as we slowly edge towards a ‘postliterate’ age. At its heart, this episode is propelled forward by the spirit of play, brought to life by Emma’s infectious enthusiasm!  

For more information about Emma Boor and Wild Boor Ideas, please visit this website: https://www.wildboor.com/.

Music credits go to Isobel (Issi) Marklew. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to Interwoven, a podcast where we follow the winding threads of literature as they weave together stories and voices across time and cultures. Hi everyone, welcome back to Interwoven, and today I'm really excited to be joined by Emma Bohr. She's a writer, puppeteer, and performer who's developed over 13 theater shows for young children. She's the creative director at the theatre company Wildboar Ideas, and she aims to make children's theatre more accessible. She has also worked with various schools and city councils to encourage children to read more often. Emma, I'm so excited to have you. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Oh, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. This is, of course, is a topic I could talk on for many, many hours, so you'll have to cut me off at some point when I just yes keep going on into the night. But I'm so happy to be here with this really important topic and something that I'm very, very passionate about.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

No, it's it's great to have that enthusiasm, and your enthusiasm is definitely infectious. I'm sure our listeners will just um grab onto that as well. I had the wonderful opportunity of listening to you speak about your experience leading research and projects aimed to make theatre more accessible for children who may have special needs, um, particularly in Oxford. And I thought that was really interesting because I had never really thought about that before. Um I guess, yeah, it's it's not never something that's spoken about much. And so I wanted to ask you what your approach to making performances more accessible sounds like. That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Um, I try and make all of the um shows of Wild Boar Ideas as accessible as possible, as you mentioned, um, because uh my general age group to work with is two to seven-year-olds. And um, when we're little, we're very much in our bodies. We need to move about, we need to uh hopefully make sounds and and be loud. Uh, we need to engage in so many different ways in the world itself. Uh, through touch, taste, all of our senses are really, really important to us when we're little. We put things in our mouths, um, uh, we're in the room listening to sounds, smells, music, all of those things as a small person are the way we explore the world. So when I make a piece of theatre, I try and touch in with as many senses as possible when I'm making a show. And the most important thing to me is what the audience experiences. And I know there's been there's so many amazing theatre companies out there. There's amazing SEN show theatre companies like Oily Cart and Frozen Light for people who are disabled. But there's so much in common between uh a profound multiple learning disabled audience member and an early years member in terms of how you reach them with those senses. When I make a piece of theatre, I always think how is the audience experiencing this and what is their journey, they're going on while they're watching the show. And that's how I tend to start. Um, because the the the importance of Wild War is to bring joy and spread joy. Um, there are obviously wonderful theatre pieces out there that address many topics like um uh loneliness or you know, lots of social issues, but wild war is all about spreading the joy and having a first experience of theatre that is a really positive one to go on for the future.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Oh, that's um so refreshing to hear as a literature student. Um, because I feel like within sort of my day-to-day sphere, I'm usually I think it's easy to fall into the trap of approaching theatre, something quite insular, as um simply a literary product that's read on the page, and that idea of experience of something quite bodily and visceral that you feel and you take back with you is what's really striking. And um I think that that's what also then maybe helps make it such a useful pedagogical tool as well. Because as a kid, I remember really enjoying that opportunity to go and watch um theatre shows, if that meant I could get out of the classroom. And yeah, I I we I know you've worked with schools, and what has that looked like? What's that response been?

SPEAKER_02 5:03

So um our recent project, Book Bonding, um, encompasses working with schools to try and bring that literature to life on stage. So they are actually experiencing with those senses that story right in front of them, and that just allows them to access uh in a different way. So our repetitive songs, um, our structures of incorporating new characters at certain points, our chanting, are um going to the audience and interactively asking as a character, oh, um, what do you think I should do? There's so many different ways and structures we use in our theatre to try and incorporate that audience so they have that experience of joy and feel part of the literature, feel part of the story. And and you're right, when you're a if you think of the things that you remember from childhood, um obviously some of them you uh aren't always as positive, but the theatre as a place and and literature as a story that you experience is a wonderful opportunity, a safe opportunity to work through a story where there is peril. There's always a peril moment in in Disney, for instance, or in children's books, um, Harry Potter, um, all of those kind of stories. There's high points of peril. And if children can experience that peril peril in a safe space in the theatre, they're more likely to go out into the world and think, I got through it in that theatre experience, I'm gonna be alright. Um, so bringing that show to life, that story to life in theatre and and through pantomimes or plays or what have you, really is a really important tool for kids to experience drama and real life and know that they're gonna be okay. I hope that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, um, what you said about safe space is exactly what I was actually thinking of when you sort of had that presentation in Oxford last year, and I remember you saying that theatre should be a form of play, and I guess in order to allow yourself to be able to play, I suppose you also need to feel that sense of safety or security within your surroundings, the people you're with, within yourself as well. And because you work so closely with with children, have you seen their responses to being able to enter that safe space? And yeah, how far is is theatre a sort of playground as much as it is a form of play, I suppose, if if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Yeah, I know that makes complete sense. I'd like to split that into two sections, if that's okay. The first thing about feeling safe. Now, when you go when you're little and you go into a black box of a theatre with your mum and you've never been in there before, or your dad, or your main carer, it there's a lot going on there from the outset. You go into an unknown space, you you your your parents will have a sense of trepidation as well, because they'll be like, oh my gosh, is my two-year-old gonna shout out a rude word in the middle of the show? Or are they gonna sadly have a toilet incident and I'm gonna have to take them out? There's a lot in social settings where parents feel anxiety and that trickles down. It's a bit like modelling. The kids feel the anxiousness, and then they are a bit like, oh my word, um something's gonna happen. Um so um that there's a lot as a parent to take on there. So you're entering the space, uh, and children are also being bombarded then with imagery, with um sounds, all of that sensory positivity that I talk about can also, if done in the wrong way, not that there's ever a wrong way, but in it not done in the in the the way that the audience is considered, there's going to be some outcomes there. And you know, all experiences are positive in some ways or the other, because you you navigate them and you come out the other end and go, oh yes, well, that's how it is. But um there's there's definite ways that wild boar have discovered over 25 years to um allow children to feel safe because also being safe is when you learn the most, because you're feeling happy. Um so when they come into a wild boar show, I always give them a tactile thing to hold. So for instance, Hey Little Bird is a show where I've made birds from hats. Everybody, when they come in, gets a flappy bird on a stick, and I meet them at the door, and I am dressed as the hat shop selling lady, and I'll be like, hello, come in, here's a flappy bird. Oh, show me your flapping. So I'm from the outset meeting them at the door, easing them into the space, giving them something tactile, so they're in their bodies, they're having an experience right from the outset, and uh they're coming on to the chairs, already um engaging with something with this bird, the flappy bird. So I always give them a tactile thing because they are in the space with their bodies active and engaging straight away rather than going, oh, this is a daunting thing. Um so there's things like that that uh and also looming at the audience with puppets. There's lots of little tricks that you you learn as you go and you you read the audience, you look at who's looking at this puppet. They might be happy to go near the puppet, they might have had a really bad night's sleep, they might have not had a poo for two days. You know, all of those impact on that child's experience in that space. So you're looking at the holistic picture of um are they not in the mood? All of that, uh, and then you're choosing to be more interactive and responsive as a performer. That I feel is a great thing to do. And that's what I've done uh with all of my shows. I try and respond um uh and and go with that so they do feel as happy and as safe as possible. Um, so so that's the safety element, if that's all right. If I could give you a quote on the play from uh Plato here, you can discover more about a person in an hour of play than a year of conversation. That's good old classic.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

I love that. Yeah. So it's good.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

It's just when you think about, you know, as an older person playing sports with people, you know what happens to yourself when you're in a game of netball, or that's my sports. I'm I become a beast. I don't even know that person. The competitive nature that courses through you is is is amazing. And I think that you can see that in um my interactive play sessions called Play the World, where I lay out an interactive show and then we'll all work our way around the show. Uh, but for instance, in play the world under the sea, I'll give everyone a fishing net and I'll say, What should we fish for? And they'll say, Carrots. Um, or last week was chocolate fish. So I'm like, right, yes, let's all fish for chocolate fish. And I'll talk to them individually about what their chocolate fish taste like, or um, you know, is it a white chocolate fish? Uh has it is it like a Cabries cream egg? Um, other chocolate is available, but I, you know, you're just moving through that space, linking into how people are playing in the space, um, in their own individual way. It's a very individual thing. So I just think play and failure is so important. Being allowed to fail in a space is so important. So you find uh, you know, that's the essence of puppetry.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Oh, I love that. Play is something I sometimes you you sort of forget about. And I mean, currently I don't know if you've heard about her, but Alyssa Liu on the Olympics, the ice skater. Oh, yes, we have, we have. And she's she seems like such a big advocate of of play and of just doing something for the sake of enjoying it, which I think in today's world is so easily forgotten. And yeah, I I think that's just reminded me of her. And I I really love the way that your performances seem to sort of you have the creation of the play happening in real time by having these, this really active engagement with with audiences. And I feel like that's so cool, and it's something that sometimes almost evades being written down. And I think that's where theater becomes powerful when it can't be written down. Like there's there needs to be that element that is uh real time, that's very much moving through space as well, through emotions, through senses. And um yeah, I I kind of wanted to ask what whether sort of play creates that space of fantasy, that space of imaginative freedom, or does play enter, I guess, that space of fantasy already? So does uh play lead to fantasy, or does fantasy lead to play, or is there something almost coinciding between those two things?

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Um yes, I think that's so true. Um oh my gosh, I'm I'm learning so much. I'm just thinking all this through. It's wonderful. Um because the the processes that I use really tap in to the amazing wonderment of the brains of the early years child, which are not constricted by anything. Well, hopefully, uh who how we look, the society, oh, I've got the mortgage to pay. All of that, that as we get older, we're our play is squashed, our fantasy, our imagination is squashed. And it's interesting what you say there about the real-time stuff can't be written down, yeah, because I can't tell people what's going to happen in a show because I never know. The audience is so different every time, and this is really a skill that sounds a bit big-headed, that I've owned over the years. That as a group of actors, if you are not flexible but you're fully trained in taking a script and delivering that, that's one thing, isn't it? That's a different shape of, and that will inspire imagination and fantasy and whatever in one way. Whereas if you go down the other route of flexibility and interactivity, uh, you can feel fully part of it in a sensory way. And then, you know, obviously I can't go into the room and see 50 children, and everyone can say, I want to fish for bananas, and then, you know, I'd be there for seven weeks if I incorporated everybody's idea. But what I hope I'm offering is I'm empowering those kids to know that they're they've got ideas, they've got strong ideas, and we can take that forward in our own work. Um, there's there's lots of companies that work with children to make performances, but you know, there is a fine balance there between being an enabler or a facilitator and trying to put a spin on the work so it's good for everybody, because you can't make a piece of work that will hit the nail on the head for everybody, can you? And and as a creative, you have to have a starting point. And I think all my shows, if you see, uh, we've got Cinderella Green the Recycling Queen, The Hey Little Bird Show, um, the Grow Show, they're all about passions that I have and things that ignite my imagination. So I start with that, and then I filter down like, wouldn't it be funny if I made some compost to the song of the stripper by uh twiddling a load of tassels and grass and put it in the compost bin? So the parents on one level are having a good old laugh at that level, and then all the kids are enjoying the tune and enjoying me making compost, smelly compost to the other bit of the tune. So I'm trying to integrate with both parents and children because the parents will model good practice, and if they do, the kids will feel okay and safe to laugh, to get involved, or to talk about what they've just seen. Um, so parents have a big responsibility in nurturing that imagination and in nurturing that fantasy. So I think there's there's so many different ways to do theatre, isn't there? But that that for me is is always been my bag to dip into what their ideas are because I know they're experts. And if I could just quickly talk about puppetry in that way, if I'm not banging on too long. No, no, of course, go ahead. I know you were quite interested in object puppetry. And the the when I know, um, when I can see clearly that I've gone off on a tangent and I'm I've I'm following my own trajectory rather than the under fives, is when I see them with an object. So for instance, uh I've got a roll of gaffer tape here. Um if I took this roll of gaffer tape and I, as I need to with puppetry, you need to take a puppet or an object and play with it to see what it offers you. Because it will offer already from the outset. The object, the gaffer tape, has a story attached to it from the outset. So you'll look at it and you go, hmm, what's that? That ooh, that could be quite dark. That could be over someone's mouth to stop them talking, or it could be something builder-related, it could be um holding up a ripped piece of fabric, it could be, you know, all of that story is from me just looking at this gaffer tape. But as an adult, you put all those constraints from your brain, that brain that I was talking about that's weighed down with the mortgage and all that. Um you put that straight on that gaffer tape uh from the outset. Whereas you give it to an under-five, they'll roll it across the floor, they'll put it on their head, they'll peel the tape a bit, they'll they'll properly explore the actual elements of the tape with before they put any constraints on a story onto that tape. And that is how you get so many amazing stories because your mind is open to what this object can do rather than forcing things on it from your own brain. So often, if I'm making a puppet of a dish rag because it's linked to a story about cleaning, I'll try and put myself in the brain of the under-five. I'll pick up the dish rag, I'll throw the dish rag, I'll see if I can roll the dish rag, what can I do with it? And and from that itself makes so many wonderful imaginative links that I learn from those guys all the time. And anyone who just thinks, oh, I'm not going to take my child to theatre because to be fair, I can just show them a lamppost and they'll look at it for two minutes and they'll be happy. Yeah, you can do that. But the difference of taking theatre, children to theatre, and creative and uh really thought-through practices for young children is so important to me because I think it just expands their knowledge, their um enthusiasm, their understanding of the world beyond all capacity at any age. So um that's really what I need to always remember is they're teaching me while I'm teaching them.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

I think what binds that together is empathy and what you said about enjoying something and then passing that joy on um to to children. So what you mentioned about um choosing things based off of what you find wonder in and that makes things easier for you to then build off of is really powerful. And then even from almost like a pedagogical perspective, I feel like as a student, um, when my tutors enjoy something, I think that that's what really stays with me. I like that joy is is infectious and um that energy is then just yeah, passed down. And I think that idea of almost creating a symbiotic system where you're passing your love for something down and then opening yourself up for someone else to teach you something is is really powerful. And I think, yeah, theater isn't some thought about that a lot, I think, in um in terms of learning from audiences as much as you're teaching them or or giving something to them. And that brings me to a point you raised in one of your BBC. See interviews of narrative as gift. And I had the joy of having Nicholas Perkins as my tutor this term. And he's written a lot on narrative as gift. So it's been something I've been thinking about. And yeah, I wanted to ask you how it is that that gift of narrative can be passed on, repacked, or or even reopened. How do you continue that conceptualization?

SPEAKER_02 22:28

As in when the audience see your show, how do they continue that? Well, that yeah, that's that's really interesting. I I do truly believe what you've said there about uh you know Professor Perkins there, who inspired you, teaching is such an important job, or just being an adult and inspiring um young people in different ways. Like in the olden days when we were linked to a community and we would hang out with grandparents and we would, you know, uh learn stuff from our parents, or you know, uh child carers or extra people in the community. Getting to know people who were passionate about things is it it's absolutely priceless, and that's why I'm quite sad about the uh the teaching profession not being as valued as as it as it should be. It's it's the most important job. We can all think of a good teacher, can't we? That we we experienced and they inspired us. And I do do think it's so much easier to inspire when you're thinking about something you are very passionate about. Um, and yeah, I've I've been inspired by so many people um in my lifetime as well. But you know, it's usually elements of the world that somebody's helped me understand or experience um or started off an interest through theatre or creativity and exploring it is has definitely been um the the way that I've gone down, how I've selected my shows, for example. Um in terms of the the premise of giving a gift and how that gift is then um continued after a show, well I relentlessly get stopped in the supermarket or the museum. There's the puppet lady, or as I've been known as the happy lady. All these these things to me are absolutely priceless, and the thing that I don't get to see, as with all art projects and art and theatre, and you cannot really monitor the abject joy from you giving that gift because I know people will email me and go, Oh, um Veronica has been being Emma Bore all morning. She put a basket of eggs on her head and said, I'm Emma Bore! Or Dave has just been um pretending to be a hedgehog for two hours, and I blame you for that, Emma Bore.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

I love how you've just become an imaginative figment as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

But what's funny is they use my entire full name. It will all be like, oh yeah, you see Emma Bore. You know, it's very official and uh oh look, there's Emma Boar! Which is so lovely. So, yeah, this is a real thing for me. Um, for people to value the arts and play, as we said earlier, we touched on that uh it's looked often as a frivolous, um uh entertaining, uh not really core important thing. Um we don't make time to play because it's looked as unproductive or petty or a guilty pleasure as it's viewed by some adults, which is it's terrible because actually, play and theatre and creativity and art is how we solve problems. And if we valued it as such, if we paid our artists to just be in a space and work with us, so many more problems would be solved because we'd be taking that view of that gaffer tape and going, oh, well, how could we roll the gaffer tape on the floor? How could we take this problem and poke it from a different direction and work through it and then oh, actually, we can change this, we could try that, and yeah, so I do not know the answer to this. This is an interesting thing. How do I take Dave being a hedgehog for two hours, or Veronica wearing a basket of eggs on her head, and say to whoever's in charge at government, this is how we find our answers. We play, we become creative, we look at things from a different perspective in an open mind, and we be ready for failure. You know, we expect failure, we celebrate failure. So without failure, we're not gonna move forward. And this is the sad thing about the educational system, is it's all about the numbers, who actually uh scores on the charts, what did you get as a result? It doesn't follow the journey of the individual and nurture the bits they're interested in. And as a neurodivergent person, I don't fit into that structure at all, and I've had to make my own way through a series of pots of treacle, wading my way three to find the answers to move forward. Um, so there's there's several things there that I've I've unpacked in a big blurge, but you know, teachers and creative people and giving that gift are super important and should be valued. Recognizing that we're not going to be able to write everything down, all the answers, and know why we should be doing it, but we can feel in our hearts that that's the way forward. Because we all know when uh theatre or creativity or arts touches um in the heart, it makes such a big impact. Um, and hopefully the education system can start to recognise this one day. Um, I don't know where we have to get to before that, before it can get a proper shake-up and look at the value of art, creativity, theatre, and listening to small people and taking on board their opinions.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

So I feel like play and that idea of just imagination is something that underpins even just the way we think. It comes down to the most smallest things, and I think that that's what's then forgotten, but what theater allows to resurface. I've been really interested in metaphors and how conceptually a lot of the things we say are metaphors, but we don't think of them as metaphors. So if you're feeling sad, you say, Oh, I'm a bit down. Um, you're not physically down, you're emotionally down. We're we're always conceptualizing things in terms of um metaphors. Uh recently I gave a talk on um how science is inherently metaphorical, something you'd think is objective. I say that with air quotes. And uh and yet it is metaphorical. I mean, uh I looked at the history of cells, and when the cell was initially discovered, scientists in the 19th century were debating whether they should actually call it a cell because it actually referred to a prison cell or a monastic cell, which we don't think about at all. Like they were trying to rename it Energid, or I don't even remember the second term, but from all aspects of life we're thinking in terms of metaphors, we're thinking through imaginative um conceptualizations of the world around us. And I'm I I'm interested in Old and Middle English, and one of my favorite aspects of old English is how it plays with language. So there's this technique called kennings where compound words are created to sometimes convey the most, I guess, simplest of things, like um whale's road is one of the kennings for the ocean, which you wouldn't think of as a road for whales. And yet it's it's something that people were were conceptualizing the ocean as. And yeah, what does what does the writing process look like? What where does play through language um come for you?

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Well, that this is really interesting from a uh the perspective of listening to a naught five-year-old talking, actually. Um I wish I could think of some examples about like Wales Road, but you know, they're relentless in what they'll say, and you'll think, um, oh, what do they mean by that? But it's it's lyrical, it's beautiful. Some of the words that they come up with. Uh, and uh my brain always taps into words, and if I hear a word, I want to say it again and again and again, just so because I'm enjoying the word. Um, for instance, uh, the only thing I can compare to is my son who used to go, I'm gonna do this straight now. Isn't that lovely? And we do we still keep saying that now in the evening sixteen. I'm gonna do this straight now to him, yeah. Straight away and now was the thing. That's how what he picked up on, and oh my gosh, I'm I'm gonna see if I can write some of these down and send to you when the kids say it, because they're they're beautiful, they that that's the way they see the world in their lyrical, wonderful linking with language, and they that they put it together, and and that's perfect. The Wales Road. Uh that there's relentless amounts of times I've heard a child go, duh and duh. It's like wow, yes, of course. That's because your brain is not being squished in any way. You're picking out the important things that mean something to you and squishing them together, which which is absolutely lovely, isn't it? Um, so yeah, I think the under five should definitely be recorded. And uh I when I when I was when Mo was a baby, my lad, I did try and start writing those things down, but obviously you're so tired. Yeah, just clicking on to life. Um so one day if I find that piece of paper, I'm gonna send it to you. Um yes, that would be so terms. Uh oh, there's another one. So when I would guide him through the hallway, we had a long, thin hallway. Um, I would use my hands, you know, to this way, this way, and he would call that bat me, batting through. Shall I bat you through? He could see my hands looked a bit like table tennis bats that we used to play uh with quite a lot. So we'd go, Will you bat me through? But that is a pure example of that lovely language they've gone. Your hands look like bats. I'm gonna bat you through. That's really yeah. That's magical, isn't it? Yeah. So that that's the first part of the question. Uh, there's so much we should listen to to make some more wonderful lyrical poetry from the Not to Fives. Someone needs to start recording that. I'll I'll task you with that. Okay. And then in terms of the writing process of one of my shows, um, it's quite poignant you should ask this. I am now 50, uh, and I've got a structure I use. Um, and what I'm trying to do is set up something called the Wildboard Ideas Training Academy. So um, I am gonna uh tell people about the structure, the writing process, in order to hopefully, you know, inspire people to work, make work for early years and use some of my bits and bobs. And I, you know, I'm not saying I know exactly how to do it for everybody, and obviously diverse amounts of stuff. It's better for everything to be different. But what I do is I take the thing that inspires me, let's say the garden, I'll start thinking about how I would chop that into five chunks. The first chunk would be about introduction, and I'll collect words, thoughts, funny things about gardens. Um I'll think look at comedy shows, I'll look at physical comedy. I particularly love the two Ronnies. I know some of that's outdated and not ideal, but they're very clever with how they use words. I'll look at the mighty boosh, something a bit more n uh regular, um up-to-date. I'll look at um Victoria Wood, I'll look at comedians that really inspire me. Uh Steve Martin, uh Whoopi Goldberg, lots of different people that really make me exceptionally happy. And in that first chunk, I will collect those words, collect those funny things, um, and try and write that down. Then I'll go on to the second chunk, which will be introducing character one and go on on the journey, character two, uh, character three, and then how the show resolves itself. So there's a proper structure there I'd like to share with people through my training courses when I get them going in September. Um uh because it also includes uh the use of post-it notes going, oh, well, as I said before, we'll have a song here, a new character here, a chant here, everyone will use the tactile puppet here. Um, so I can see how that um process, how the person is experiencing the show as they go through that journey. Um, and I can see, oh, there's a lot of vocab here. Maybe I should change that and shift that and put a part where I put my bum into a giant bucket and get that stuck in there so they can have another moment, or they can feel in their bodies by standing up and uh, you know, pretending to be a rain cloud or something, and then they can sit down again and be more receptive to taking the next piece of story when I might want to impart some more uh deeper language, or have a contrast of really funny and really not sad, but poignant, poignant information. And I think we all know, don't we? If we watch a film that takes us to uh hilarity, then can take us to poignancy. How much more that will um get inside you? And and that's just the same with kids, you know, they they feel uh like human beings feel, and sometimes they're not looked at in that way, and it's like, oh, let's wobble a hanky near them and you know sing about Humpty Dumpty, which obviously is valid in its own way, but I don't feel that that's my role to do that. I want to make sure that that writing process is uh a mind map of things I can tap into and then bring together in the in the order that will give them the most joy and um make the most impact on them either in a sensory way or an emotional way.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Yeah, that idea that plays can and performance and puppetry can move from being funny to poignant, and sometimes critics might say that oh play isn't is is just play, there's no moral or virtuous or um educational element to them. And would you would you maybe see play through storytelling as something that can be virtuous?

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Oh my gosh, so so much. I've got another quote here that I'd like to read out if that's okay. Yeah, humanity has advanced when it has advanced, not because it's been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it's been playful, rebellious, and immature. And that's from Tim Robbins. And I there it is in a nutshell, isn't it? Yeah, you've got to be immature, playful, um, and rebellious. Pushing things forward is not about staying safe um and being sober and responsible. Uh and play is the time that that happens because we can get into a zone. And I think that's another key point of what I try to do at the start of those shows. When people come into a play the world session, which is the interactive session, they've they're bringing in massive amounts of baggage with them. They need to get into a playing zone, or they will not reap the rewards of the replay the rebellious and immature things that are happening. Um, I'm I'm angry when people think that it's not valid. I'm s I'm like, oh, what are we supposed to do to move things forward? And uh, we're so uptight sometimes that it's it's such a shame. And and that's why I think hanging out with the under-fives is so great for everybody because oh my gosh, if they think your show's rubbish, they're literally gonna tell you. Yeah, it's very I bring out I've made this butterfly out of an umbrella uh in the show, The Treetop Restaurant, and at the end I bring it out and it's gone on a really emotional journey. This egg um has gone on an emotional journey, and I've gone on an emotional journey, constructing my restaurant and encouraging people to come to the restaurant, eating silly things and putting cream pies in my face. And at the end, I bring out this beautiful butterfly to a really sensitive piece of music where all the kids are like, that's an umbrella! That's an umbrella, and I'm absolutely fine with that because yes, it is an umbrella, and hopefully that kid will go home and play with that umbrella and make that in a in a itself in a in a different way and have fun with that. But I just think there's so much to be learned from play, and it's so undervalued, just like painting or drawing. Think of when we're in class in school, let's all draw these oranges. Your orange is the wrong shape. Your orange should not look like that. And I mean, obviously, education's moved on a bit since I was in it, and hopefully it's not like that anymore. But uh, you know, from what I'm looking at, GCC artboards, there's no room for failure on those. Please demonstrate all the best bits of everything you could ever do and stick it to a board. Um not the journey of finding that, of drawing that orange, how you did some rubbish oranges, and then you found that actually you like to take the peel off the orange, then draw just the peel, then zoom into the peel, and then oh, then you did something wrong, you squished the orange. Oh, but it made some nice juice, you know. It's that process on the way, that play and theatre and creativity will explore, and only if it's given higher status and value will we get anywhere in the world. We just need to remember it, and I don't know how. And what's interesting now with on-screen, uh AI, all of that, which I'm I'm sure has absolute brilliant values to the world, but I struggle with it, I really do, because I am in the world of shadow puppetry and putting a basket on my head and making children laugh, or pretending I'm lifting some really heavy bananas that are too heavy for me to lift off. And kids laughing their heads off it and then going to do it themselves. Um the stuff on the screen is not very sensory and is a ready-made babysitter, and gosh, I know parenting is so hard, it really is, but what I've just been looking at is how your brain takes on board a book, and how your brain takes on board the massive amount of information fed to you through the internet. So, in the 70s, when I would go into the library every Saturday, and I can't read, to be honest with you very well. I can't read fiction, but I can read non-fiction beautifully, and I'm really into it. So I'd sit for hours in the woodworking section or the uh boutique printing section, or or you know, and I would just make my way through all of those sections and obviously the puppetry section, anything that inspired me, and then I would go off and and create that. Um, and the difference between being shown 7,000 slides on the internet of um, oh, you could do this, you can make this with a paper plate, you could do this, oh why don't you do this? In my mind, maybe it's not the same for everybody, but that's absolute overwhelm. You've got too much choice then. You can't actually process those little meaty nuggets to get you inspired and to make you apply yourself, because being creative is really hard. Anyone who sits down to draw a picture with a piece of A4 or write a document or write a book or make anything is overwhelming because of that sense that failure is not respected. So you're like, oh gosh, there's all these constraints. I've only got 10 minutes. Oh my gosh, I've got oh no, this is all the I've got if the pens run out. Oh da da da. There's all those natural pressures. And then on top of that, if I make a rubbish picture, oh no, I'll have failed. And then I'll know I'm rubbish at this rather than okay. Right, what have we got? Oh, we've got these. Let's go! Splodging it all on. Oh, ooh, that's interesting. That's quite nice. Oh, I'll do a bit more there. Oh, my pens run out. But never mind. I found that on that journey. Where I'm gonna go next when I've got some more pens in from the shop. It's it's that kind of thing that I know I keep banging on about it, but I'm just I can't see where we're going with the internet and the AI taking us even further steps away from the hands, the feelings, the senses that we first emerged with and were excited about. Because we will remember the more sensory things that we get engaged with, the more we'll remember that. Do you remember when you first smelt some donuts or when you first went to um in out in the snow? Or all of those things?

SPEAKER_00 45:08

I actually do remember the first time I went out in the snow because I'm I've lived in in the Middle East my whole life, and I'm uh here for university, and it snowed for the first time in my life in my first year of uni, and I felt like such a child that day, and that was such a wonderful moment because I had always wanted to see snow, and that was the day I got to see snow, and it was so good. I felt like my inner child was really happy that day, and people look up to the sky and it was falling.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Yeah, and it's so wonderful, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 45:47

Just and you will always remember that, and I will remember sticking my tongue out and trying to and those things, you know. We I tap into that. So I'll rip up a bucket load of tissue paper and I'll throw it over the kids' heads because I remember those sensory feelings, and then I'll waft the tissue paper with a piece of card, and you know, those things running fast in the wind, eating amazing cakes, you know, listening to amazing drum beats or um getting involved in playing the drums, all those wonderful sensory things that uh we will remember from childhood. Uh, you know, you won't get them from a screen. I don't think. I mean, I'm open, I'm trying, I'm trying hard to be open to this world, but um I'm not sure how maybe it's probably best that I die before it takes on completely. You know, I'm trying, I'm trying to understand social media, I'm trying to see the benefits uh of bringing people together in that kind of way, and I'm sure there are uh so yeah, watch this space. Hopefully, Emma Bore will move on and be open and play with the social media and find a thing out.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

There must be something in there. I see. Put me forward and not be miserable about it.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Yeah. Um, I mean, I read an article from the New York Times that was talking about how we're entering this age of post-literacy, which I had never thought of, and I thought that was so interesting because um with AI, I mean, I have a younger brother who's um 10 years old, and I watch him and his friends, and they use their voice when they don't want to type or spell or um think too hard about you know whether the spelling's going to be correct, and um, so the voice functions there now, and post-literacy is such an interesting way to think of where this new generation's going, where they don't actually feel the need to write or to even read because AI and chatbots are just there. You they if you can't, if you struggle with reading, you've got these voice activations. If you struggle with reading, you've also got visual things, and that that can be really helpful in certain situations, but I feel like it's come to the point where it's overtaking that again that that desire as well as this just the functional need for your brain to be well flourishing, I feel, when when you read, when you write. Yeah, chat GPT is not writing too, you know, for for children, and I think that that's really really um scary to think about. That human connection is what makes you use like um I don't think chat GPT is there's nothing innately or inherently human about it.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

Um it's it's just but if you think about what we talked about inspirational-wise and inspirational people in our lives, real life experience and passion and good teachers, that yeah, that that can't really can you get that from chat Gotham's some of it's false, isn't it? Because it's dragged from different parts of the internet and confused, you know. If you look at some of the stuff about me on there, it's not actually real. And I'm like, wow, where have you got that from? So that that's a worry in itself, isn't it? That uh and and actually if we think the things that we've got the most joy, humanity, um how we've developed the most from is if something's a bit hard, isn't it? If we had to work hard uh to learn to make a good meal, you know, it's actually the process of making the meal and making it rubbish a few times, and then making it good, you're like, oh, this is so tasty now. Oh my gosh, those first times I made it, it was disgusting. But now, and now I'm gonna share it with people and go, look, I've made this. Obviously, I'm a rubbish cook and have never experienced that. You know the concept behind that. I can burn a bird's eye potato waffle, but um yeah, it's that thing of learning, learning and feeling and experiencing and working towards something because um yeah, working towards it just allows you to achieve, doesn't it? And surely that's linked back to happiness and and a sense of achievement and a sense of purpose in life as well.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

Yeah, um Chad GPT and AI is just taking that journey away. I think it just gives you a shortcut. And I did see an interesting video. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole about like AI and what the future is going to look like um a while ago, um, last summer, and I I came across this video that was really interesting, and it argued that there will come a point where people will want to crave journeying. They will because as humans, you want to be able to feel like you've achieved something, or and that sense of achievement comes like from failure, like you can't just in immediately reach something where you suddenly feel like, oh, I've I've done something myself, and I think the world will be so deprived of that feeling that um the universe.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

I've got a quote if I can um do this one. Uh, we're never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than we're when we're at play. Yeah, and that's Charles E. Schaefer. And be that sense of flow, you know, your brain is in when it's trying to solve those problems, and you're you're in the moment, you're present, which is definitely what the under-fives do as well. They're they're living the moment, they're they're they're there and they're working on a problem that they're working on at that particular time and they're fully engrossed in it because that's all they can think about. If you take a toy off them that you or stop or say you've got to go to bed now, they're like, No, I can't, I'm in it, I'm really in it. And that that that is that thing of of the rewards of being engrossed and and being able to solve problems, yeah, uh it's gonna be a deficit, isn't it? And yeah, I know if I don't draw or if I don't make something, uh I've just spent uh about three weeks working on a funding bid, and oh, my fingers are itching to make something. And when I make that, it's like a sense of oh, relief in a way. And and is that what you think that might be?

SPEAKER_00 52:52

Yeah, I think that that that tactile nature of something like um I've always loved pottery and something like pottery, theatre, um, writing, they're all physical things. Um, they're all things that make you sort of in tune with yourself, your surroundings, but also I guess your body and your emotions. And in the post-literate post-literate age, according to that article and a couple of other articles, um, it is that these moments of just pure connection with yourself and others that will remain. And um yeah, I think that that might be a good place to draw close to an end. And I just wanted to know if you had any final thoughts, any final comments, but and also how how you um keep that spirit of play going in your own self and in your own own journey.

SPEAKER_02 53:51

Yeah, I think essentially I'm a ridiculous person. Um I've got hair like a rainbow. I love making people laugh. Um, I love being silly, and I love a little bit poking at authority. I think I want to challenge people and challenge their thoughts really about me. Um so I'm a bit rebellious in that way, not in a not in an extreme way, in kind of, you know, I'm probably a mild mannered janitor that doesn't want to upset anybody ever. But I equally I want rainbow hair, I want a nose ring, um, I want to express myself through wearing ridiculous clothing. Because I just I just want people to meet me, form an opinion, and I want to chip away at that and go, oh, well, you didn't really think that was, you know, what I was about, but now you see actually this. And so that's kind of in me. But I I just love laughing and I love being silly um and hanging out with kids because they they embody it, you know, most of the time. They aren't constrained by um uh the mortgages I keep going on about and uh social media. Oh, do my lips look good enough on social media? They uh they're just up for it and up for play. And that that, if I can keep going, uh I'm struggling a bit with the menopause physically and uh you know, with energy levels, but if I hang out with them, I know they'll keep me right. They've got so much to offer, and if we just listen to them a little bit more and reflect that in ourselves, I think we can learn so much and hopefully take things forward and and keep the lightness and keep uh the level of play um and challenging things in the forefront of our mind. So, as grown-ups, we don't squash all of our mojo and all of our joy by weighing ourselves down with the constraints of society. So uh they've taught me so much, and I'm gonna keep trying to make them laugh because there's nothing better than hearing uh a line of giggly children as I did on Saturday when I did a show called The Abominable Snowman, when I kept bringing out us a pair of pants out, going, Oh, uh snowman, have you got anything that can help me? Uh no, I don't think your pants are gonna help me, I'm afraid. And they were just laughing their heads off. I did it about six times and so um, yeah, that there's a lot to listen to with those small people, and I think they can really help us for the future. If we can listen to them and respect their creativity, then we're on a good track.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Yeah, I think those are such powerful messages that I mean all of us can take so much from, and yeah, your enthusiasm really has been infectious as I knew it would be, and um, I'm just so glad that you you managed to find the time to speak with us, and it's been wonderful. And I hope you enjoyed it as well.

SPEAKER_02 56:59

Oh, I thoroughly you it's hard to shut me up, isn't it? I'm sorry, no, I'm sorry if I talked over you at any point. I'm just holding it in my brain. Um I am uh delivering these training courses called the Wild Boar Idea Training Academy in September. So um if anybody's interested in getting in touch and and learning about uh how to work with children, how to make theatre for small people, how to use puppets in theatre, um, and how to make sensory sensory shows for people with access needs, um, do get in contact uh and see see me on wildbore.com, spelled B-O-O-R, that's Emma Bore, like the hairy pig, but a different spelling. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

No, thank you so much, and all of that information will be in the episode description. So feel free to follow any of the links that I'll be putting down there. And yeah, um, thanks so much. Thank you, thanks so much. Thanks so much for tuning in this week. Join me in the next episode of Interworld as we continue unraveling the winding threads of literature.