Do you have any personal connections to Maidenhead?
I’ve recently moved to Maidenhead, so I’m particularly excited about the show being on at the Arts
Centre there, Norden Farm. We’ve got lots of friends and family in the area, and I’ve been starting to
get more involved with the local creative community too. As part of the ‘Farm Out’ programme I’ve
done workshops and performances at a few nearby schools, and I’m very much hoping that some of
the kids will persuade their parents to bring them along to the show.

 

Tell us about yourself…
I’m both a writer and performer. Kids who come and see me can expect poems about ninja skeletons,
raps about pug dogs playing football, stories about boys who meet Pacman and girls who can’t stop
drumming. 

    I’ve been doing more poetry and theatre than music the last few years, but my love of words and writing began with hip hop. I was a hippy kid with Kurt Cobain curtains and a skateboard who discovered I could rap in my teens. I built my skills up at the open-mics and battles of the Brighton hip hop scene.  
   Since becoming a dad, I increasingly write for, and with, young people. Friends For All at Norden Farm is my first show for children and families, and it was commissioned by the V&A. It’s touring in 2018 as partof Half Moon Presents.

    Friends For All is a story about having the confidence to be yourself and stand up for what you believe in and features rapping, dancing and far-out video projections for ages five to 11 and their grown-ups. There’s a lot of rapping in Friends For All, and it’s really exciting to see how that use of rhythm and rhyme can engage young people, and help them to follow a story.

    In the show, our hero is an eight-year- old girl, Lexi, who lives in London. She doesn’t make friends as easily as some. She, like me, longs for a non-school-uniform day so that she can be herself and find others like her. Inspired by her grandad’s hippy stories from the swinging ’60s, she decides to fight the powers that be, namely her class teacher and the school bully.
   As a parent myself it’s been amazing to have families watch the show and then say that they’ve been
going through some of the challenges Lexi faces themselves; peer pressure, having the confidence
being yourself, and the courage to stand up for what you believe in despite what others say or do.
These are big things for young people to deal with, so to think that the show on some level might help
them work that through is incredible.
 
Do you particularly enjoy working on shows for a family audience?  
I absolutely love it! I’ve always enjoyed working with younger kids, but in the last couple of years I’ve
started writing with and for them much more than adult audiences. When the V&A approached me
about making my first full-length show for children and families, I soon realised that this meant my
writing must be consciously more poetic and linguistically playful. It was not about simplifying the way
I write for a younger audience.
   Like the best films for kids, we want our shows to work on more than one level. I enjoy sprinkling in a
few moments throughout that whilst still making sense for the kids, are perhaps more aimed at
making the parents chuckle or consider something in a different way too.
   In terms of the practicalities of performing a show for kids, there are a few differences! As a parent
myself I know that some days it feels like an insurmountable task just to getting your kids sat down at
the same time, with none of them desperately needing a snack or the toilet or a nap, or all three. As a
performer that just means getting used to a few more disruptions, and embracing the more leftfield or
unexpected contributions during the interactive sections!

 

What else are you working on at the moment?
My first picture book for children will be published by Quarto/Frances Lincoln next year; it’s a story I’m
really proud of and I’m very excited to see how the illustrator works with the text!

   I’ve also already started work on my next theatre show for children and families. It’s a collaboration
with singer-songwriter Gecko. We’re going to use live songs, rap stories, and instant poems that the
audience make to tell a tale of two friends on a quest for adventure. A mole, a gecko. A rapper, a
singer. A river. A boat with no name. So far we are imagining that audiences might encounter a dodgy
biscuit salesman, a violent whisk-wielding badger, and a floating island of one million and three plastic
straws.
   I also have a YouTube channel for kids, teachers and parents – raps, poem and interactive writing
games that make writing fun, and build some of the skills young people need to enjoy literacy at
school. https://www.youtube.com/poemsforkids_si

 

What inspired your career? What advice would you give to young people hoping to follow
in your footsteps?
I’ve always loved stories, and playing around with words, ever since I was a toddler. I know now that
even from a very young age, playing with rhyme and rhythm stimulates our brains to look for patterns
and connections. It is in our nature to enjoy predicting sounds, and then the words and ideas that
follow them. So I do think it’s as deep-rooted as that, and just being lucky enough to have family and
friends that supported me to carry on enjoying words and music and theatre as I grew up.
   I would encourage young people to read and listen and write as much as they can, but I’d also say to
put time into finding other people who share the same passion as you, building up those creative
communities is an essential part of making this possible and enjoyable.

​

Simon Mole is talking at the Media Hub at the Bel & the Dragon in Cookham on 29th March at 8pm. You can buy tickets here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-media-hub-with-poet-and-rapper-simon-mole-tickets-43441263990

​

Friends For All, his interactive spoken word performance for families, is on at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, Maidenhead, on 13 April 2018 at 11.30am & 2.00pm as part of his 2018 Spring Tour. https://norden.farm/