Went to fabulous @TheShowstoppers kids show at the weekend. Entirely improvised based on suggestions from the kids - Little Red Riding Hood was mean, and then so was Shaun the sheep, and at one point Little Red was off to get Excalibur from a fairy in order to “chop” Shaun.

I was genuinely tense, there with my 3 and 5 year old, that it was about to descend into all out violence. All of these horrible suggestions were permitted. I was wondering if any of the cast had kids whose nightmares they would have to deal with.

Then, at the last minute, as the sword was raised the kids were asked what message the sword would give to Little Red.

“Don’t chop Shaun!” came the command, and the whole story pivoted to all the characters learning to be kind, ending with a song about a banana of friendship which has entered our family canon.

I asked @IAmPippaEvans about this and she said it often happens- given free range, kids almost always opt for for darkness first. For meanness and nastiness and violence. To begin with the team edited suggestions - maybe paw patrol could tickle them, not torture them?

But then the kids disengaged from these sanitised stories. So the @TheShowstoppers have learnt to trust the kids. Unprompted, kids bend the story towards justice. Towards goodness. Sometimes a full on Shakespearean bloodbath occurs, and then the kids call for resurrection.

Well this blew my mind. It made me think a lot about parenting, about allowing space for kids to process their fears and pretend to be baddies and work evil out. But also about story, about deep narrative logic and our sense of how things should end.