Sydney Opera House, Australia |
What made you move from Australia to Norwich? It was the late 1980s. I really wanted my daughter, who was two and a half at the time, to experience my roots in Britain. We came to spend a year in England and as it happened we came to Norwich by chance and fell in love with it. We were fortunate to find a wonderful house in a wonderful neighbourhood with children the same age. There were around a dozen families with children in the same age group. It was an opportunity to explore a childhood in another country. We had a great time. Did you notice differences in parenting in England and Australia? One of the things I noticed was that England was a bit behind. I was somewhat surprised that back then you couldn't go shopping and have childcare in the shopping centre. It just seemed that generally young parents were not well catered for. For example there were no places to change your baby in the toilets and if a father was with a daughter, there was no-where where he could take her to change her. So it was a little bit behind.
HI-5 Alive! will be appearing at the Theatre Royal, Norwich |
On the other hand, what I did find was that there were very sharp people there that understood childhood development in a way that appeared traditional, but in fact was very modern. For instance, I took my daughter to ballet and the teacher would make the children do things like skip backwards and she'd work with their balance and their musical recognition skills. There was a whole range of body experiences that she encouraged them to do under the guise of ballet. In fact it's much more like jimbaroo. It was just very interesting. Would you say then, that your time living in Norwich gave you some inspiration for HI-5? It's very difficult to say what inspires you at any time. I do know that that time in Norwich made me feel and makes me feel very comfortable in knowing children in Britain and how children are pretty much the same all over the world and things like HI-5 appeals universally. We deal with things like family, love, growing, space, plants, animals - all of those things that appeal to children everywhere. We try and keep them as modern as possible so that children see on television, their world reflected - not necessarily their immediate world, but the world they currently live in - the world of 2004. Perhaps what it did do, is that I was inspired by a group of families that I knew in Norwich. I had the confidence that I'm going in the right direction.
Cathedral Close in Norwich |
What are your favourite places in Norfolk? I love Cathedral Close and the Broads which are beautiful. April is a great time to see daffodils. There will be fields and fields of daffodils! I've mentioned that to the team of people going over. Do you have any plans to make a UK version of the HI-5 show in England? We don't have any plans to do that - it really depends on how it goes and how it's received. We were surprised that we managed to sell the Australian version to England as we assumed they'd want their own version. But what is wonderful about England is that there is such an acceptance of different accents, different cultures and it makes the country all the more richer. Channel 5 felt very strongly that the Australian cast should come over. The children don't really notice the accent. What they like is their funny, positive nature and attitude and the children adore them. The cast are very much looking forward to coming to Norwich as I've told them all about it! HI-5 Alive! will be performing at the Norwich Theatre Royal on March 7, 2004. Read more: back to the beginning » |