Written and Directed by Tim Crouch, Toto Kerblammo! will be presented at The Edinburgh International Children’s Festival.

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If you wouldn’t mind giving us an introduction to yourself, the creatives involved in the show, and the show itself.

The show is called Toto Kerblammo!  It’s for ages 10+. It’s as good for adults as it is for ten year olds. Maybe it’s harder for adults. It’s a play about a girl and her dog. It’s also about love and despair. It’s also about listening. It’s a show that uses sound in a particular way. Every audience member wears headphones during the performance. The world of the play exists between the live action on the stage and what we hear in our ears. The binaural sound design by Helen Skiera is award-winning.

I’m the writer and director. I’ve been making theatre for both young and adult audiences for years. Toto Kerblammo! is designed by Lily Arnold and the lighting designer is Will Monks. Sound, light and design come together to create a beautifully intimate and transformative space in which this story is told. It’s performed by two brilliant actors, Oliver Baines and Lily Olufemi-Bywaters. 

What first sparked the idea for this piece, and how did you shape it into something that speaks directly to young audiences without alienating?

Toto Kerblammo! has been a long time in the making. More than twenty years ago I was invited to write a play for young audiences that would be both on stage and on the radio. A play that needed to be listened to as much as watched. For various reasons the play didn’t get produced and the idea sat with me for a long time while I was busy with other things. The Unicorn Theatre in London finally gave me a commission to finish and produce it in 2024. 

I have a parallel track of young people’s work that sits beside my work for adult audiences. The tracks often converge. Toto was originally written around the time I was writing my adult play, An Oak Tree. Both plays circle around ideas of dealing with loss. In An Oak Tree the girl dies. In Toto Kerblammo! the girl is saved. Toto was my salvation!

From the beginning of my theatre-making I have been interested in what the ear ’sees’: the power of words and sound to trigger an imaginative response. This play has a narrator in Toto who can hear things humans can’t. It felt like a good way to invite a young audience to open their ears to the world around them. I worry sometimes that our modern culture underestimates the power of listening.

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Imaginate is often known for unique or bold visual storytelling — what creative choices became essential in bringing your world to life?

I am a writer, not a deviser. Toto Kerbalmmo! was written singularly with an emphasis on story and words but I knew that a sound designer was needed to bring the world I’d written to life.

Helen Skiera’s work is internationally known. She worked with Simon McBurney on Complicité’s Tony award-winning The Encounter. She also lives in Brighton where I am also based. We had the best time talking about sound: the sounds of things you never knew made sounds. Helen has created a sonic landscape for Toto Kerblammo! which elevates the story to a place I couldn’t have imagined.

Young People can be the most honest audiences. What reactions or moments of engagement have you already had, or are hoping they’ll take away from your performance?

We worked with a group of young associates at the Unicorn Theatre as we were developing this production. The play doesn’t shy away from emotional intensity and we were concerned that the themes could be overwhelming. We also wanted to test if a young audience could watch for 70 minutes with headphones on. On both levels we were reassured by how robust and emotionally resilient a young audience is. The children are okay. They can handle the play better than their adults. The residing memory of this show is seeing the children watching with wonder as their parents, teachers and guardians wiped away tears at the end. 

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International Children’s Festival shows often cross borders in form and language. Does your production, or the teams, background or creative process shape the way this story is told?

I’ve toured my work around the world and have been greatly influenced by international practitioners. But this is a homegrown piece developed mostly inside my head, where most of my work begins. As I write I have free-rein to imagine whatever I want. The fun process is then seeing how what I imagine can be translated onto the stage. I don’t set out to write ‘experimental’ work. Stories as they come to me require different forms of telling. My imagination allows me to follow those forms to their creative conclusion.

If you could describe your show in one image or feeling — the moment you hope stays with audiences long after they leave — what would it be, and why?

There’s an image of hope at the end of Toto Kerblammo!  Hope against the odds. Two 12 year olds learning how to be together; one learning how to ask for help after a difficult journey. The rain stopping. The sound of love and healing filling our ears. This is the image we leave the show with – one of possibility and purpose. It’s the image I want the audience to take away with them. It is beautiful and profound and joyful and sad.

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