Interview: New season, fab new focus on young audiences at Jacksons Lane

Angus MacKechnie tells us about Jacksons Juniors

As Angus MacKechnie steps into his role as Creative Director and joint CEO at Jacksons Lane Theatre following their achievement of fifty years in the biz, we are delighted to note that his inaugural season comes with an exciting, refreshed programme of work for young audiences. The new Jacksons Juniors initiative covers shows for all ages, from babies to teens, to family productions, conscientiously focussing on serving its audiences at all stages of life. We were more than a little bit amazed by this fabulous choice of direction so asked Angus in for a chat to tell us all about it.

Hi Angus. Thank you so much for talking with us today about the upcoming season at Jacksons Lane. How are you settling into your new role as Creative Director and joint CEO?

It’s been a whirlwind, of course, but the thing that’s struck me most is how much affection people have for Jacksons Lane. Everyone I meet has their own story about the building. They came here on a school trip, played in a gig in the 90s, volunteered at Christmas, brought their own children or saw a show that stayed with them for years afterwards.

I’ve spent much of my career bringing artists and audiences together, so it feels a real privilege to be looking after a place that’s already meant so much to so many people both on and off stage – because so much of my professional journey into contemporary circus took place sitting in the Jacksons Lane theatre. My job now is to make sure the next generation has those same memories to look back on.

So let’s cut to the chase: a segment of programming that is clearly focused on young audiences, rather than just an afterthought to the adults’ schedule is brilliant news! What was the thinking behind it?

It came from a really simple premise. Children deserve brilliant art. 

Sometimes family work sits in a little corner of a programme, almost as an extra. I want Jacksons Juniors to feel different. It’s not an add-on; it’s a fundamental way we want people to experience Jacksons Lane.

I’ve been getting up most Saturday mornings, jumping on my bike and rushing out to watch children’s shows (sometimes three a day) so I could find the best to bring to Haringey. The cyclist in me couldn’t resist the hilarious, exhausting, participatory On Your Bike, Baffo. And then there’s The Sleep Show – a beautiful, dreamy dance piece about bedtime – as well as Flotsam, an opera for babies, competitive drag in the Lip-Sync Brawl, messy paint-covered chaos with SPLAT! and a magical garden adventure with Highly Sprung’s Grow.

We’re also welcoming the Crick Crack Club for a series of wonderful storytelling shows (8+), alongside quite serious work for older children (13+) with Similie, dealing with teenage social and digital isolation and Bones in the Desert, taking a hard look at refugees and war from a young perspective.

I hope families will look through the programme and think – there’s something for every age here and we could come back again next month… and the month after that.

Why is making high-quality live performance easily available to young people important to you?

I can still remember shows that completely captured my imagination when I was young. Those amazing moments when theatre would just transport me somewhere else; even if I can’t remember the details, I remember laughing or gasping or being scared or dancing in the aisles.

Children are wonderfully honest audiences. They laugh without embarrassment; they join in when it seems right to them, shriek when something amazes them and afterwards, they ask questions adults would never think to ask.

In a world where so much entertainment happens through a screen, I remain an unashamed advocate for sitting together in a room, watching a show and sharing a live experience with other people; it’s something I hope every child gets to enjoy.

Can you tell us about the kind of shows we might expect to see in Jacksons Juniors? Do they cover multiple genres? Are they all about fluffy bunnies and with singalong ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’ segments?

Well, there might be the occasional fluffy bunny… One of the things I love most about this season is how varied it is. Circus sits at the heart of Jacksons Lane, so there is wonderfully inventive clowning in SPLAT! and aerial circus for young ones in Mother Deer.

If you love words and stories, the Crick Crack Club line-up is exceptional; if you’re drawn to visuals and images, Hay! engages the imagination and Mika and the Polar Bear combines beautiful dance and puppetry.

The common thread isn’t the artform; it’s the imagination of our young audiences. Every show invites children to be curious, to wonder and to see the world through new eyes.

This season, there’s a comfortable sidestep into shows for families and adults with the circus, dance and physical theatre you also have programmed and some extraordinary work on the cards. Was this positioning a conscious decision or has it just come about organically?

Very much a conscious decision. One of the reasons I love contemporary circus is that it’s one of the few artforms that genuinely crosses generations. You can sit a five-year-old next to their grandparent and they’ll both be completely absorbed, even though they’ll each take something different away from the performance.

I wanted the different aspects of the season to speak to one another. Someone might discover us through Alice in Wonderland and come back later for By a Thread. Someone who loves the visuals of Space Hippo might be tempted by the beautiful movement of Soft Spot or the extraordinary physical action in How a Spiral Works. I hope we aren’t programming separate worlds for children and adults – we’re cultivating the crossover.

There’s a new slant to your ticketing too. Can you talk about that?

We want to make it as easy as possible for people to give us a try.

We know families are juggling lots of demands on their time and money, so we’ve set Jacksons Juniors tickets at just £12.50, alongside affordable £10 tickets across every show in the whole programme; it’s a simple way to make arts and culture as accessible as possible to all of the Haringey community, while still paying our bills.

As it’s 32 degrees outside today it only seems proper to talk about Christmas, which is often a highlight for theatre for young audiences. After this exciting autumn season, what’s coming to Jacksons Lane to close off the year?

I’m really interested in seeing the tone shift at JL over Christmas – as well as a packed programme of kids’ shows, we have the renowned Jacksons Lane Christmas Day Lunch. As an event, the lunch is built into the fabric of the building; 100 older adults who might otherwise spend the day alone come here for a festive meal. It’s a lovely reminder that Jacksons Lane isn’t just a theatre, it’s somewhere different generations come together.

Family-friendly circus kicks off the Jacksons Lane Christmas Cracker season with Hikapee’s The Elf Factory, there are two very different kinds of puppetry in Three Little Pigs and Pinocchio, a playful take on ballet in A Christmas Wish from Let’s All Dance Ballet Company, a musical delight in the stage adaptation of Tom Fletcher’s There’s a Monster in Your (Christmas) Show and, for that no-man’s-land between Christmas and New Year, we have the silly silliness of The Ultimate Bubble Show, which is exactly as silly as it sounds!

Some are gentle, some are hilarious, some are visually spectacular but they all celebrate spending time together – which is what Jacksons Juniors is all about; if our young audiences leave wanting to come back for another show in the spring, or join a circus class, or meet their friends in the foyer, then we’ll know we’re doing something right.

Thanks very much to Angus for telling us about Jacksons Juniors and the brand new season coming up at Jacksons Lane. You can find out more about what’s in the diary below.