Queen meets young creators on visit to children’s theatre

The Queen has celebrated the work of a children’s theatre she visited with her grandchildren.

Camilla toured the Unicorn Theatre that began as a mobile playhouse founded by Caryl Jenner in 1949 and met youngsters providing creative inputs into new productions.

Stage and screen actor Rory Kinnear, best know for his appearances in the James Bond franchise, chatted to the Queen after she met school children who have helped with the forthcoming play Pig Heart Boy.

Kinnear, a creative ambassador at the central London theatre, said: “It’s somewhere I used to bring my kids when they were small and I still bring my youngest and we were talking about how she used to bring her grandchildren, but we’re both at the point where they’re almost too old.

“But it’s a wonderful place for not only entertaining kids but inspiring that first taste of creativity and imagination for so many people.”

During the visit the Queen watched a stage presentation by the children involved with Pig Heart Boy adapted for the stage from a book written by former Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman.

The book tells the story of Cameron, a teenager who undergoes a heart transplant from a pig, and the author said: “I think there is absolutely room for challenging content and content that hopefully makes children think what they would do if they found themselves in Cameron’s shoes.

“What I hope I’m doing in my books is opening up debate and discussion.

“It’s never my intention to say this is right or this is wrong – what I do is say is ‘this is this person’s life, what would you do if you were in their shoes’.”

The author has judged the BBC’s 500 Words children’s writing competition supported by the Queen, and said it was “tragic” libraries across the country had closed, adding “it’s mandatory to have libraries in prisons but not mandatory to have them in schools, that’s just bizarre to me”.

Camilla also chatted to Kim Behling and partner George Multescu, who had brought the eldest of their three children to workshops to help develop a Unicorn production of the Princess And The Pea.

Ms Behling later described how her five-year-old son Theodore and other children tried out piles of mattresses for the storyline – and even recorded sound effects, adding: “It was an amazing opportunity for the family.”