22 | May 29, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News
The critical list: more hot tickets
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As her latest heroine takes to the Cambridge Arts Theatre stage in Hetty Feather, ELLA WALKER finds out what makes the much-loved British writer tick
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OU wouldn’t think it, but Jacqueline Wilson can sound quite devious. “If you have kids going through a hard time in Victorian days, even though I try and write about it as realistically as I can, it doesn’t seem to upset protective mums as much as my modern books,” laughs the oft labelled “kindly aunty” of children’s fiction. Despite her popularity, the prolific writer (she’s currently working on her hundredth tale), has come in for quite a bit of sniping since her days working on teen magazine Jackie, usually from the aforementioned overprotective mums who think her books are too gritty, too revealing and too grown up. That of course, if you have any sense, is absolute rubbish. Whether you’re a girl in your mid-20s (like me) who learned everything she knows about boys from Wilson’s Girls in Love series, or are 11 and being gently nudged and helped through the knots and worries of school and home, that woman is an absolute wonder. “It bothers me that people sometimes feel they know what’s in my stories without having read them,” Wilson muses, without anger. “I think they’re quite moral stories and I’ve seen several times someone saying, ‘oh, Jacqueline Wilson her stories are about drugs and sex’, and actually there’s no drugs in my books, no sex in my books.” The beauty of the Wilson is that she’s honest and doesn’t treat children like fools who don’t know what’s going on around them. What she does write about is “children going through a hard time. Certainly I do write about parents divorcing, parents getting ill, I do touch on a lot of troubling things but I always try and end with a positive note.” Hence why she’s sold more than 30 million books in the UK alone. Growing up on a council estate in Kingston, Surrey, Wilson left school at 16 and didn’t take A-level English until she was 40, but was always reading, perpetually writing stories in Woolworth notebooks and making up characters in her head. “When I was growing up long ago in the 50s, children’s books were slightly bland. I was an avid reader and read everything I could get my hands on, but I used to think these children aren’t quite real enough and why do all their mums and dads just get
on? And why are they all so rich with their big houses and their huge gardens and everything? “I did make some kind of resolve that if I ever got lucky enough to be a published writer I would write about life the way I see it. And luckily for me that’s actually happened.” Tackling divorce, abuse, foster care, mental illness, homelessness, grief and all the toughest parts that come with realising your parents don’t have all the answers, or even a fraction of the answers at times, her stories (beautifully illustrated by Nick Sharratt), make you weep, laugh and think. Here’s hoping the Rose Theatre production captures these qualities in the new stage version of Hetty Feather, Wilson’s newest character threatening the reign of the loud mouthed, curly haired Tracy Beaker as her most loved creation. Coming to Cambridge Arts Theatre, it’s based on the first book in a series about Hetty, a little girl abandoned by her mother at a Victorian Foundling Hospital. “Her story is quite dramatic,” explains Wilson, on why Hetty has struck such a chord with readers. “I think it’s quite easy to be drawn into her story because she has probably the worst start in life, being handed over to a foundling hospital when she’s only a few days old, but she’s such a spirited, funny little thing.” Switching between the bleak foundling hospital and a loving foster home, Hetty is clothed and fed and educated but treated very strictly indeed. “For a little rebel like my Hetty, this is just so difficult. I think most people, old or young, like to read about some spirited young thing to who all sorts of hard things happen but she doesn’t let them knock her down entirely.” The book has been adapted by Emma Reeves, who’s contributed to many Tracy Beaker TV scripts, and sounds rather fun, packed with circus skills and acrobatics. Wilson is thrilled with the casting of Hetty too, which bodes well.“I’ve met Pheobe Thomas, the actress who’s going to be playing Hetty and she is just so right for the part; she’s small, she’s spirited, she’s got lovely long, naturally red hair. I mean she just looks made to be a Hetty!” So she isn’t worried about having her story twisted and turned into something it isn’t? “Everybody working on it is taking Hetty very seriously,” says Wilson. “I’ve always had very positive experiences so far.” In fact, her career to date, other than the odd overzealous parent, has been ridiculously successful. She’s won the Smarties and Guardian Children’s Fiction prizes, was named Children’s Laureate in 2005, has been twice highly commended for the Carnegie Medal, and was recently made an honorary fellow of Corpus Christie College, Cambridge (“which is a huge honour”). Surely there must be some downsides to being a full time writer?
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Jacqueline Wilson:
“I think my perfect day would be to write a tiny bit, and then read all day.” “I don’t know about that,” she says in her soft storyteller’s voice. “All I know is that this is what I like to do.” “For me the private joy of having laboured for a bit and suddenly finding a solution to the plot or finding a sentence or even a phrase that sums up exactly what I mean, that always gives me just a little thrill,” she says, but admits: “I am my most fierce critic too, but it’s lovely when I feel yep, that bit’s working, that’s ok, and then nothing is nicer.” She also spends a lot of time meeting readers – her book signings have been known to last up to five hours. “When, with eyes shining, they tell me just how much they love this or that story, that’s a wonderful feeling too.” See, she’s lovely. Now working on book 100 (“a very long novel about an Edwardian girl this time,”) Wilson cites Hetty Feather as her favourite to date. “For so many years I’ve written very contemporary stories and loved to do it too, but it’s lovely to have a complete change. I was a little anxious that children might not take to historical novels and the change of tone as much as they do my contemporary books, but I’m absolutely delighted that they seem to like them just as much, if not more.” As well known for her reading habits as her penmanship, apparently Wilson devours a book a week. “I think I read probably more than that!” she says, reeling off a list of Victorian biographies. “I’m also a member of a reading group and we meet once a month so I’ve got to keep up to speed there. I’m very happy to read. I think my perfect
day would be to write a tiny ny bit, and then read all day, that’d ’d be lovely.” It sounds idyllic, as doess the snippets of time she has between etween reading and writing: “I like e to go for walks, I did go for a long walk in the park yesterday but unfortunately at the moment ent you have to don your welly boots ots and squelch through the mud, it will be lovely when it dries up and one can go for long walks again, n, and I also love shopping. And I love ove art galleries and museums.” However, perhaps most marvellously and most surprising is the fact Wilson on also adores dancing. “One of the happiest times of my life ife was in late middle age when en I used to go line dancing,” she says, laughing. “Which h is considered incredibly nafff I know and I didn’t go quite as far as to wear the Stetson but I did have a pair of cowboy boots and I did absolutely love it. t. “I still feel a little wistful sometimes whenever I hear ar country music.” ᔡ Hetty Feather, Cambridge Arts Theatre, Tuesday, June 3 to Sunday, June 8 at 7pm. Tickets £15-£20 from (01223) 503333 / cambridgeartstheatre. purchase-tickets-online.co.uk
POSITIVE: Children’s author Jacqueline Wilson is delighted with the casting of Hetty Feather