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Pioneers are a difficult breed to review: one wants to acknowledge their trailblazing ambition and appreciate the fact that it is done at all, rather than apply measured judgement to the ground being covered. That, anyway, is how I feel about this interesting, but limited book by Peter Slade. Slade's pioneering is in the area of theatre for children, group innovation using drama, dance and movement. He is a drama teacher who set up the ‘Rea Street Centre’ where he ran summer schools for groups of Birmingham children for more than thirty years.
It is evident that Slade knows his craft well. The book is an oddly constructed but lucid, lively stream of anecdote, instruction and folk wisdom. It is a decidedly un-academic book and as, he makes clear, he is more intent on ‘doing’ than reasoning why: ‘Particularly boring it is to see some new long and complicated name for something which has already been named and probably known about for years’ (p. 12).
This is an intensely personal book where the author's voice rings out clearly: positive and optimistic, often entertaining, occasionally hectoring, sometimes naive, incidentally vain, but always striving to be kind. In short, it is easy to see how Peter Slade could take the bored and restless groups of youths and turn them into companionable cohesive teams who created living and moving stories between themselves. It is difficult to resist the spell he casts, and his message that drama is worth doing for its own sake, is creative, calming, expands the heart and mind, carries the power to heal. This is a master talking of his craft with pleasure and pride.
Much of the book is a ‘how to’ instruction manual for teachers. There are chapters for junior and senior pupils with ideas for props, sound, lighting, use of space and story construction. He is at pains to let the story develop from the group enacting it, but there is strongly imposed editorial control, judging by his numerous examples. Slade