This is a commentary/review of the programme "Young Autistic and Stagestruck", screened by Channel 4 from 12 April - 10 May 2010.

 

Episode 1

 

This series looks at the progress of nine autistic kids as they attempt to write and perform their own stage show.  The first of these kids is Andrew, a 'classically autistic' young man (according to his parents) who has social skills problems, a restricted imagination and finds it hard to cope with change.  Ben, another young lad, is an exceptionally intelligent and perceptive boy with high functioning autism who is deeply competitive and has difficulty understanding other people's emotions.  Joszef is a severely autistic kid who is fond of taking several baths every day. 

 

The nine children meet together at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, and are introduced to their directors David and Montse for the first time.  The kids are supervised by a trained care team while they are in rehearsals.  Ben dislikes the seeming stupidity of the warm-up exercises where they introduce themselves and make a funny sound and gesture to go to with it.  He puts people out with his self-confessed negativity, but deep down he feels isolated.  Andrew makes friends with Claire, a girl in the group, and is warned by his parents about getting too close too soon.  They instruct him on how to deal with Claire in a way where they are touching each other less and he is less intrusive.

 

In the second day, the group look at music and dance.  Music is considered good therapy for autistic people but the group respond to it in different ways.  Ben and Mollie have problems doing it while Claire, despite her obvious talent, has a fundamental lack of self-esteem.  At the end of the week, the group have to perform in front of an audience for the first time but Ben is preoccupied.  He describes blacking out whenever he loses his temper and his father fears he will end up in prison when he is older.

 

Lea's mother Cindy talks of the problems she has with other people when leaving her daughter alone with them but hopes the people watching can see through this programme what having a child with autism is like.  The directors have fears about how they will be received but in the end the cast's series of solo performances goes well.  The group's therapist Dimpi Hirani notes the group connection that has been formed with the kids.  The two directors say it's possible to make a show from the progress they have made this week.

 

I enjoyed this episode.  Watching or being around other people with AS is never easy for me and I thought the voiceover was occasionally intrusive.  But I still like this episode and I am keen to see what happens next.

 

Episode 2

 

The second episode takes a look at Molly, who is autistic but acts according to her mother, like a naughty spoilt brat but she insists Molly isn't really, she just is who she is and people can take it or take a running jump.  Despite her mother's insistence that this show is good for people to understand autism, I thought watching Mollie scream and have a prolonged tantrum with her mother (attacking her and trying to escape the house on her own) crossed the line between informative and downright exploitative.  The kid was vulnerable at that point and they put cameras in there.  They could have shot it more discreetly, from the outside or a voiceover but having it in your face like that was a bit too much for me.  But then again I do this quite a lot myself even now as an adult and I don't like being reminded of it by watching others do the same.  On a similar note, I don't see why they had to film Joszef having a bath as his mother discusses him.  This too seems to me to be a bit intrusive and I wonder if they could not have found another scenario to film him in.

 

Ben describes people with autism as being trapped in various different moods (confusion, affection or sadness) and as it happens he is trapped in anger.  I think this is very true for most of us - being trapped in anger most of the time is certainly true for me.

 

Alexander, a black kid raised single-handedly by his mother, struggles with taking the tube to the theatre as he feels it is too crowded.  But his mother tries to instil a sense of independence in him as one day he will have to survive without her.

 

I didn't like the narrator asking the kids "Do you think you've got autism?" Well obviously they do, or they wouldn't be in the show.  I assume the programme-makers did their homework to check if their participants had an ASD diagnosis and if so this question is irrelevant.  Asking the kids ABOUT autism, as they do in other parts of the programme, I think is OK but asking them IF they have autism seems to me to be a little bit patronising.  

 

Jonathan, 12, says if you could cure autism you would need to wipe or replace someone's brain because autism is a part of who a person is.  His mother is delighted to see him playing with others for a change, Andrew and Claire get closer while Mollie continues to cause problems with her refusal to participate. 

 

In fact, watching the way some of these kids behave reminds me of doing Occupational Therapy in Foresterhill Hospital in Aberdeen.  I don't know if I've talked about this before, but it was a group of 'problem' kids with limited social skills getting round a table to talk about their week.  I did OK, but a couple of the other kids definitely did not want to be there and started acting up.  The supervisors at the group would then deal with these kids away from the table, sometimes having to pin them to the floor whenever they got physical.  That's what I was thinking of when I saw Montse argue with Mollie over a prop.  Mollie had taken ownership of it and wasn't sharing it with anyone.  When Montse objected and tried to make her give it back, she had a struggle on her hands and the argument nearly gets physical as Mollie nearly breaks it.

 

Montse, clearly exhausted, is counselled by the drama therapist on hand as the disruptions from the kids get worse.  She and David persevere but they are clearly frustrated - both clearly have to relearn everything they know in order to work with these unusual kids.

 

Episode 3

 

This is third of the week-long workshops for the group and Joszef, the most severely autistic of them, causes a disturbance when he fouls himself and leaves excreta on his chair, sending everyone fleeing from the room retching in disgust and holding up the workshop while a cleaning crew is called in.  Later Jonathan takes him under his wing and he starts to improve.

 

Ben has formed a friendship with Mollie, which later hits a snag when Mollie insults Ben's father creating tension between them.  This hampers Mollie's own progress in the group when Ben, out of spite, puts her off performing.  It is revealed that Ben has a girlfriend from school.  Despite Ben's autistic traits, the two get on well.  Claire also has a group of friends outside the cast who are autistic and socialising with them helps her gain independence.

 

Alex, the oldest of the group a rapper and artist, gets frustrated doing a dancing exercise when he can't do his rap freestyle dancing.  This sends running him out of the room, later admitting that not doing his natural art form inhibits him.  He later shows us a display of masks he has showing all the different skin tones people have.  As the workshops come to an imminent close, Mollie becomes terrified of the change and it takes some coaxing from Claire to get her to join the others.

 

A writer is called in to take the cast's ideas and stories and use this to create a script for the show.  The two director's Montse and David then consult a designer who takes the writers ideas and builds a model for the possible show, with each performer getting their own story before uniting at the end for the last performance.

 

Montse and Kevin take the cast through their paces, doing a readthrough then rehearsing each part of the show bit-by-bit.  Montse even introduces the group to some professional actors also doing a show at the theatre in order to give the cast some more insight as to how to behave in a rehearsal room and on the stage. One of the actors says it is crucial that they get on with each other, as then they will be more able to take risks and try exciting ideas.  

 

I am not so critical of this episode, as the move towards more of a focus on what's going on in the rehearsal room rather than at home is welcome.

 

Episode 4

 

The group see their set on-stage for the first time in small studio theatre and start to explore it.  Joszef seriously disturbs the group when, in a moment of impulsiveness, he throws Mollie off the stage hurting her.  This does not help Mollie, who really does not want to get involved and finds it increasingly hard to get into it all.  Ben doesn't want to do the Mr. Men dance and Jonathan, who has the most to do, has a severe emotional attack on the eve of the performance.