Mary Norton's 'The Borrowers'

I think Mary Norton’s The Borrowers would translate well in a variety of different mediums; including Film, television and theatre. However, I have chosen to portray my interpretation through children’s and family theatre with elements of puppetry. The genre of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers is a children’s fantasy novel. Although The Borrowers are essentially no different from a normal British family, their physical height and struggles to adjust to a world of giants makes it a fictional fantasy tale. Because of the fantasy genre I think it would translate well for theatre that all the family can enjoy. When designing for children’s theatre I believe it is essential to treat it no different to any other design project. Taking in to consideration

They actually expect a very high level of craft and aesthetic (Mitchell, 2010). Designing for children’s theatre is about more than bright colours (Allen, 2005) as children are overwhelmed and bombarded with colourful, whimsical images on a daily basis through books, television and advertising actually making them experts on visual storytelling (Wiencek, 2009). This makes them more aware of what they like, and don’t like making it harder for the designer to capture their imaginations. Also, children in the modern age have so many exciting technologies available to them, that design and story needs to be more captivating to make them sit and pay attention. (Wiencek,

Children have the ability to fill in pieces with their imaginations, but only if the designer has given them enough to build on in the first place. (Wiencek, 2009) For my designs I wanted to use this simplicity to let the audience’s imaginations run wild; however any designs I did create were considered and thought about thoroughly. The puppetry aspect of my design was one area I wanted to keep fairly simple and not overcomplicate for the audience. However, I also wanted to have enough attention to detail to give the audience grounds for the imagination to take over. I hope puppetry will evoke a sense of scale as well as making it an interactive and immersive experience.
It is said by Caroline Astell-Burt (2002) that “the desire to make something apparently come to life before our very eyes is so deeply embedded in our humanity that it takes very little imagination for this to happen”, I think this is particularly true for children and I believe that puppetry is a great way to ignite imagination and inspiration. Tom Morris (2014), the director of War Horse similarly believes that “the audience give the gift of life to the puppet. Audiences of any age can do this but children are the worlds experts at