The premiere of two Horrible Histories, about World War One and Two, come to New Brighton next month. Peter Elson reports

WITH their irreverent and often weird look at the past, Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories attract a big young readership.

Just the kind of material which must be gold-dust for a keen actor -manager who has to keep his company going without grant aid.

But they are not the easiest books to transpose to the stage, with their screwball scatter-gun style, which goes off at all sorts of tangents.

However, Neal Foster, head of the Birmingham Stage Company, seems to have got the formula down to a fine art.

He successfully staged Deary’s comic tomes on the Egyptians, Romans, Tudors and Victorians.

So premiering both world wars on a double bill with four actors is a piece of powdered egg cake.

Such economy of scale helps with this touring production, Frightful First World War and Woeful Second World War, on at New Brighton Floral Pavilion, next month.

“Deary speaks to the children in a way they enjoy,” says Foster, 43.

“He’s very good at finding gory and horrible facts which children love.

“But these new productions, commissioned by us, are also very moving and sensitive.

“The tone created by the stage writers Phil Clarke and Mark Williams is spot on.

“There is the wartime black humour and Deary’s trademark strange things, but they also bring home to children what it was like to be there.

“We’ve found they appeal as much to adults as children, some of whom come without youngsters.”

In the first play, a girl is trapped in a Horrible Histories website. The second play is about two children evacuated from Coventry to Wales.

“In typical wartime style, we have a secret weapon – 3-D Bogglevision,” says Foster.

“Out of the giant video screen on stage comes 3-D objects which fly into the audience.

“These include the U-boat attacking the Lusitania on its way to Liverpool, and the bombs and flames engulfing Coventry.”

Foster has fought a few battles himself. The son of a Birmingham engineer and hairdresser, his parents were “supporting, never encouraging” about his acting.

“My father’s coming round to it,” he chuckles.

“My late mother wanted me to become a bank manager. I’ve not even played one on stage.

“I’ve never wanted to do anything else. Apparently, when I was two, I was dressing up and, aged seven, in a prep school play, the audience fell about when I played a parent in a sketch.

“To me, I was just getting into the part. It’s a rare sort an experience to find people had a great evening because you were part of it.

“Stage acting becomes a very intense form of living. For two hours, you’re immersed in a character and experience you never have in real life.”