A Childish Act...

  The past week we've been putting-back-together a show we toured around Welsh primary schools last year called Star Pupil. A dream-like game show in which the contestant (an 11 year old) must complete tasks and challenges in order to learn everything they'll need to know about going to secondary school.

  When developing work for a younger audience it can sometimes be hard to re-align your approach so it works for the 11-year-old mind. It's no mean feat, and in coming up with material we sit around with coffee in mugs, our legs crossed and/or folded, pencils and pens in our mouths, note books on our laps, twiddling with our chins and/or facial hair asking ourselves: "What are the kids into these days?"

  Never has asking one simple question made me feel so old, and in reflecting upon all the ideas that asking that question might produce, it unwittingly defines exactly how out of touch with our childhood we have allowed ourselves to become. We think back to what it was like to be a kid, like peering into an abandoned house through one of it's grime covered windows. I remember dressing up a lot and the smell of the floor. It dawned on us all that we'd maybe become so distant we might not be able to ever feel the way we felt back then again.

  I'd had enough. I didn't want to feel old or distant from my childhood, none of us did, so we played with wool, and having just been jilted by experiencing the distance from right now to back then, we tried to claw a little back by acting like kids again, albeit, giant, hairy kids, but kids non the less.

This is what we made: THE WALL OF WOOL

 

 I don't know who said it, but I like it: "You have to grow old, but you don't have to grow up" I think we should all remember that sometimes.

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Mucho,

Justin