I was very interested in Ken
de Courcy's views on children's shows published
recently in a magazine. His advice is always
worth studying. He is honest too. He tells us
that he hasn't performed any children's shows:
yet has watched hundreds. I guess he was watching
his dear wife Sue, whilst helping to take in
the props. Often a person who watches such shows
as a member of the audience, yet knowing a lot
about magic, is a better judge of matters than
most of us.
Those of us who have presented
countless children's shows know too well the
pitfalls. Ken has outlined several things that
have happened to me personally. The more kids
shows you do, you are bound to experience more
problems. The less shows you do, problems will
be fewer. Here's some of the things I hate about
kids' shows, and I have been doing them for
years, often on a daily basis, and during summer
months two or three per day.
You are performing a show to
six year olds, all seated on the floor and things
are going well ... that is ... until a little
three year old boy drags a chair across the
wooden floor back and forwards. The noise seems
to get louder and the Mum smiles around. "Look!
My little boy can pull a heavy chair like that
all over the place." You feel as though you
want to shout out, "for heaven's sake kill that
child!"
On occasions (not that often),
and even at school shows, one child in the middle
of the hall is sick. Everyone moves away. What
do you do? Certainly this disruption wasn't
of your making. A signal to someone in charge,
even a teacher nearby (they are always sitting
at the sides) should be given. The teacher will
see the plight, and fetch some sawdust, a cloth
and bucket, and disinfected liquids. The problem
solved - the show can continue. Often at shows,
including play-schools, you will find that mums
will be chatting throughout. This is always
a difficult one to overcome. Whilst you can't
say 'shut up,' you can get the children to respond
by saying, "On the count of three let's all
say grown-ups please be quiet." Repeated this
does bring results, and most of the adults who
are making the noise feel rather ashamed.
Then there are the children
who follow the little brat who starts them off.
He chants "Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!" and the other's
follow. It doesn't happen very often, but when
it does it certainly puts you off.
And you get the little naughty
boy on the front whom, when you blow up a long
modeling ballon and you ask, "what does this
look like?" shouts out, "A Willie!" What do
you say? Nothing... Forget it.
Children are unpredictable.
The professional performer can usually control
the children "most" of the time. At other times,
unpredictable things often happen and cannot
be controlled. I know of one performer who unfortunately,
whilst performing, had a child collapse and
die - WOW! But busy children's entertainers
will agree with me when I say that for our five
times, over the years, I have had the birthday
child reject me. On two occasions the birthday
child would NOT join the others and the party
had to start (I made sure of that). On another
two occasions the birthday child would not assist
me, so I had to use another child from the audience.
But how can you print the magic birthday card
to "another child?" I have seen some very nice
birthday children and some very nasty ones.
One little girl was so arrogant that when each
child came in handing her a present, in unwrapping
it she would shake her head and say "Rubbish."
The same little darling girl when opening a
another gift unfortunately found it contained
a duplicate present. She quickly snapped, "I've
got three of these and I don't need anymore!"
Then she whirled it back to the poor benefactor.
Needless to say her dear mother rushed over
and said, "Darling - you might break one and
this will be a spare."
Ken is right. An amplifier
is a must. I also use a backcloth display unit
and spotlights. When a child comes up and tries
to touch the very hot bulbs I say, "Stop, Mum,
where are you? If she touches these she will
be burnt to a cinder. She will look like a hot-cross
bun and we all know that it is very bad luck
to get electrocuted on a Saturday afternoon,
don't we?" Like Ken, mentioning wandering children,
although not under your complete control, must
be stopped. Children wandering (youngsters that
is), around the back of your set-up must be
a no-no. Whilst you are there to entertain,
you must not allow this sort of thing to flourish.
Remarks to the Mum like, "There's lots of electric
cables back here." often don't bring results,
but can sometimes help.
Then you sometimes get the
nasty child who after the show keeps pulling
your jacket or hitting your bottom for no reason
at all. This can be disturbing but must not
be tolerated.
Because I have a backcloth
unit I can bring it out in front of all the
props, all of the tables etc, hiding them from
view. Many children's entertainers have the
problem of having loads of children come up
after the show and raiding their props - often
destroying them. One performer told me that
his yards and yards of silk streamer was destroyed
in a matter of minutes, yet the parents of the
birthday child laughed it off. His silk streamer,
to replace, cost a mere 260 English/Sterling.
And that's not from Magic Hands of Germany,
otherwise it would of been double that.
But I feel the worst problem
that occurs is when some young mother is nursing
a baby who in turn cries and cries and she never
even thinks of taking the baby out. This little
baby not only spoils the show for the others but
also should not be there in first place. The baby
is probably one of several children of a mother
who has brought along the "main" child to the
party, but doesn't really care or understand the
trouble her child is causing. Perhaps she is used
to all this crying at home. If this is the case,
let it be at home. We have, most of us, brought
up children, so we know how they re-act. And if
readers ask me if I like children, I will simply
answer 'yes,' with lots of salt and pepper, and
perhaps a dash of English mustard! Only a joke
of course. Ha Ha.
