Interview – Toby Hulse, Director of Not Now, Bernard
Ahead of Roustabout Theatre’s tour of their adaption of David McKee’s Not Now, Bernard coming to the Montgomery Theatre on 16 and 17 February 2027 we were delighted to interview the show’s director Toby Hulse.
Q. You are bringing the classic children’s book Not Now, Bernard on tour – tell us more about the show?
A. Not Now, Bernard tells the story of a child who is unable to get his adults’ attention, even when he is trying to warn them that there is a monster in the garden who is going to eat him. It’s a perfect balance of hilarious nonsense and warning tale, and is still as frighteningly relevant today as it was when the book was published in 1980. In contrast to the characters who are failing to communicate, our production is stuffed full with different ways to share a story, including music and sound effects created live onstage, mime, and Makaton. There is an excitable, irrepressible, playful energy bubbling just below the surface, always on the verge of breaking free and creating gales of laughter. And, because the story is as much about the adults as it is about Bernard, it’s the perfect show for people of different ages to watch together.
Q. Tell us more about Roustabout Theatre and how you are involved with the company?
A. Roustabout specialises in making theatre for and with families and young people. We tour to theatres, schools, community venues, and libraries. Our work was described by Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph as ‘silly, stirring, inspiring stuff’, and I think that sums us up pretty well… We’ve been together as a company for seven years now, producing a mixture of original work and adaptations, in shows exploring everything from the Apollo 11 moon landing to gender stereotyping to the digestive system. I am one of the four core members of the team, with principle responsibility for writing and directing the shows. Very occasionally I perform as part of our improvised storytelling show The Great Big Story Mix Up.
Q. What are you looking forward to most about bringing the tour to Sheffield, especially during half term?
A. This will be our first visit as a company to Sheffield, and we really enjoy meeting new audiences and sharing what we do with them. Our work is always very responsive to and interactive with those who have come to see us, and we are looking forward to making some new friends. Half term is the perfect time to be sharing a show about how children and their adults interact – we love sparking conversations in our audiences, so it’s great that families will be able to enjoy the show together.
Q. David McKee has a distinct style, especially as an illustrator. How do you adapt this to the stage and maintain it?
A. Our designer, Laura McEwen, has done an extraordinary job in capturing the spirit of the illustrations in the set and costumes. These are not exact recreations of the pictures in the book, but flexible, playful spaces for performing in – although absolutely everything that you see on stage appears somewhere in the book if you look hard enough! What has been most important is using David McKee’s incredibly vivid colours and patterns throughout. It will definitely feel like we are inside the book. David McKee’s writing is beautifully simple and spare, and we are maintaining this in what you hear spoken onstage. However, there are so many different ways of communicating throughout the whole production!
Q. A lot has changed in the 46 years since Not Now, Bernard was published. If you were Bernard in 2026, how would you try and befriend the monster and make sure yours and the voices of all children who met it were heard?
A. The most obvious change is the advent of the smartphone, and all the demands on everyone’s attention that comes with its invention. I’m sure that we have all found ourselves pulled into spending far too much time staring at that little screen, and it’s interesting how current the debate about the use of social media is. I imagine that the first thing that a modern day Bernard would do is insist that everyone puts down their phones.
Q. What’s up next for you after the national tour?
A. We have been developing a show for a year now that is designed to be performed exclusively in libraries. We want to encourage young people to explore the areas outside the designated children’s area. It’s based around a kind of treasure hunt using all the extraordinary resources available in your local library to try and communicate with our future selves. We’ve done two periods of development work to date, and we are ready to move on to the next stage and create the full show.
Q. And finally, if you could adapt any classic children’s book for the stage, what would you choose and why?
A. Roustabout love taking on what seem like impossible challenges. I would love to do an adaptation of that all-time classic picture book Where The Wild Things Are. The illustrations are so iconic, the story is so beautifully suggestive, and there’s a wild rumpus of monsters right at its heart. What’s not to like?
For further information on Roustabout Theatre visit https://www.roustabouttheatre.co.uk/. To book to see Not Now, Bernard at the Montgomery Theatre on 16 and 17 February 2027 visit https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/not-now-bernard.
