Rob Tay talks inspiring children to interrogate their world
Mayhem and madcap scientific adventures await as the slightly beguilingly named theatre company Crafty Fools set off on a tour of the UK with Adventures in Science, aimed at over 6s. We spoke to Rob Tay, one half of the company and a performer, to find out more about experiments, cartoon crows and why he loves to bring live performance to children.
Hello, and thanks for taking the time out to talk with us today. Before we hear about your latest piece, Adventures in Science, can you give a little background about the company? Crafty Fools is such a great name – how does it reflect the work you make and tour across the UK? How are you both crafty and foolish?
The name comes from the idea that our work would be a mix of clever stuff and stupid stuff, whether it’s a fun science show or a big silly magic show, or whatever else we feel like making. The hope is that if you come to our show, you’ll laugh a lot, and you’ll also go, ‘Wow that’s cool.’ And, we’re crafty people in the practical sense of the word. Pretty much everything you see in the show we make ourselves – we built the set, we sewed the costumes, we draw and animate Crowbert – that’s the cartoon crow co-star of our shows. We like learning skills and doing things, and if we have a silly idea for a prop or a bit of costume, we can just make it.
But above all else, for us the highlights must be our interactions with the audience – the things that kids say and do when we get them on stage during the show, or afterwards chatting too. Like, about how the science tricks they have seen work, and every now and again, something more random such as: ‘Why do we have a moon?’ or ‘How is blood made?’ And then we have to think quick and give them an answer that will make sense to a six-year-old. I guess that makes us crafty fools!
So, what about Adventures in Science, which started touring across the UK in March? You call it “seriously silly science for all ages”. Sounds great. Can you tell us about the approach and creative ideas that kickstarted the journey of making it?
Crafty Fools co-founder Emma Spreadbury and myself are both former science teachers. We wanted to do a science show that didn’t conform to the usual ‘lab coats and explosions’ model you often see touring around, and was also super entertaining and memorable. One of the most common questions you’d get in the science classroom was, ‘How did someone come up with this idea?’ So, the show aims to say what science is and how it works, but importantly present it in a way that children will understand and enjoy.
We also talk about modern ideas in science, like artificial intelligence and misinformation, so we can hopefully give children – and their parents – the skills to navigate what’s happening in our rapidly changing world today. To do this, we use Crowbert as a comedic character in the show, but also as the voice of the children in the audience. He can ask silly questions and come up with strange ideas, and we can then tackle them. When Crowbert says he doesn’t believe in cats, the kids laugh, but it lets us talk about misinformation in a fun way that parents and carers will be able to refer back to in future.
Sounds amazing and much needed. But making quality work for 6+ audiences is sadly not as visible as it may have been in the past, as programmers can be more cautious with work for older children. So, what made you want to create work for that age?
Children are a hugely enthusiastic audience – you don’t have to work to bring their guard down like you do with adults: they come into the show full of energy and you just have to match that. They’re also much more open to weird ideas and big characters. Our show is performed by one human and one cartoon crow, as I mentioned earlier, and the kids are absolutely fine with that. The moment Crowbert appears on screen the children in the audience are totally on board. We want to make theatre that does that.
If we are asked why, it is because Emma and I both went to the theatre as children and were fascinated by it – I knew I wanted to perform, Emma wanted to go backstage and see how everything worked. And here we are many years later doing just that. We love it. Most people in the industry probably had the same experience. It’s genuinely really nice now to be the other side of that initial fascination and passion, as we know, when we perform one of our plays, it can be a child’s first experience of the theatre. One of our favourite things to be asked after a show is, ‘How do you get to do this for a job?’ Hopefully, we are not just inspiring them to be scientists, but theatre makers one day too.
I’ve always really enjoyed the work of Morgan & West – I believe you are one half of that great duo. Looking back, what brought you together as creatives and should we expect some of the same mishap and mayhem with Crafty Fools?
Yes, I am. Emma and I first met many years ago as teachers and quickly became friends, so when I left teaching to make work with Morgan & West, she would often come along to shows and help out, and became an unofficial part of the team. When Morgan & West decided to call it a day, I then was looking for a creative partner, and Emma too had decided it was time to leave the teaching profession, so Crafty Fools was born!
While we are a different company with a different creative team, our shows very much continue the spirit of Morgan & West, being fun and silly with high production values, but certainly now with a different aesthetic. One of the advantages of starting a new company after fifteen years of touring as Morgan & West, is that we get to do all the stuff that never quite fit with the old partnership. That is why Adventures in Science has lots of lights, colours and visible technology – as silly as it sounds, at first it was a very novel experience for me to do a show that had a computer on stage. Now it is second nature.
If you were to sum up the play in three words, what would they be?
Actual. Proper. Science.
Thanks to Rob for taking time to speak with us today. We wish Crafty Fools good luck with the rest of the tour.
Adventures in Science is aimed at 6+ audiences is presently on a venue and festivals tour until Sunday 2 August, including one London scheduled stop at Wilton’s Music Hall on Tuesday 7 April.
