The Go-Between - David Wood Interviewed

Paul Clarke: So how are rehearsals for the Go-Between at West Yorkshire Playhouse going? 

David Wood: Everyone seems to be getting on very well. We're all enjoying the rehearsals and are very satisfied with them.   

Paul Clarke: Are the various cast members who play the young go-between Leo living up to expectations?  

David Wood: The four boys, two for each role as they alternate, have performed excellently.  I’m delighted with them and it goes to prove what the composer Richard Taylor and I said that that we honestly believed it would be possible to find boys locally to do this, rather than search stage schools in London. 

We found boys not only in Leeds, but also found them in the other two places where the show is going in Derby and Northampton.  We’ve found 12 very talented young men so we’re delighted. 

Paul Clarke: Given your pedigree - you’ve done many of the great children or young people's novels - what attracted you to the Go-Between? 

The Go-Between is my first grown up show for many years because I’ve been working for children for so long. But when Richard approached me, he had got the rights on the book and I was intrigued because I know the book and I had seen the  film when it came out and subsequently. I always thought it was one of the best films of its kind and I was immediately intrigued by the idea of doing it.

The other reason why I think Richard approached me was because he had done incidental music for an adaptation of Tom’s Midnight Garden, which is a children’s book. But it features a boy and an older character, as well as being a period piece set at the turn of the last century.  There were similarities and when Richard got the rights he thought of me. 

Paul Clarke: Any other reasons? 

David Wood: There was another reason.  When we first met and talked about the work the point I made very strongly was that I believed that the story was best served by seeing everything from the boy’s point of view.  

The story of the Go-Between is how this boy becomes an inadvertent go-between between two lovers from different classes, a doomed affair, a forbidden affair, and he is very much included because he is taking messages between the two lovers. I  felt that the story benefited as being told, as it is anyway in the book, from the point of the child. 

Paul Clarke: What’s different about this work as a musical?

David Wood: In regular musical what often happens is that you see situations from the different character’s points of view, and they sing about those points of view. 

That’s good.  But in this I suddenly thought we can’t have the two lovers singing a song about their forbidden love or something because that is something the boy never witnesses.  He is never privy to that. Similarly we couldn’t have a song about Marion, the middle class girl, singing about the rigid life she is forced to lead and the lack of freedom by her Edwardian parents. 

The boy wouldn't see that therefore we shouldn't see that.  Richard agreed with this which was a good step forward as the way to approach it. 

Then as we worked on we discovered that in the book that happened, but more than that the book included the boy when he is grown up 50 years later. He is the one who is really telling the story so we decided we could incorporate that so we could have both characters on stage, the young boy and the old man. 

Then as the story progresses it might be possible for them to talk to each other. The old man might criticise the young boy for what he did and the young boy might criticise the old man who has become a rather sad, unfulfilled person.  That opened up various other doors but kept the main thrust that we are seeing the story from one person’s point of view. 

I love the story and still think it is one of the great novels. I think it is one of the greatest of the century, and it has been a privilege and pleasure to do it. 

Paul Clarke: Why a musical version? 

David Wood: I think the emotional content of the story is such that it lends itself to a musical telling.  That is one test whether there are enough emotional situations between the characters as to whether it is appropriate for a musical. 

I think that it has and the fact that Richard discovered it, and he is the musical one. He felt enough empathy with the story to put it on so that is fair enough. 

It is certainly a very poetic telling of the story. The story itself in the book is very straightforward.  It is tragic in many ways and this boy loses his innocence. He is just being nice and loves it when the adults are being nice to him, but he doesn’t realise he is helping towards a love affair that is totally doomed. 

The male eventually commits suicide, the female forced into a situation she didn’t want. The whole family is traumatised by what has happened.  

Paul Clarke: Your background is in children’s books.  What sort of age group is it aimed at?  

David Wood: It’s definitely a grown up show and I've been saying to people this is my first grown up show for 35 years. Having said that the Go-Between has been a set book for GSCE so I'm expecting 14 or 15 upwards, but there is no upper age limit.  I think  young teenagers from 14 or 15 upwards will get a lot out of it. 

Paul Clarke: This was a book written 50 years so does it have something to say today.  West Yorkshire Playhouse tries to be progressive so do you think your telling of this story has any relevance? 

David Wood: I certainly think the story has relevance. You could say that class, which is a peculiarly British thing, is less important and we are much less classless society than we were 100 years ago.  But are we?  Are we really? 

The terrifying things that have been going on in city streets.....are we honestly saying there is equality and everyone respects everyone else?  

I think anything to do with class has huge relevance, but it is more than that, it is very, very human story.  It is a tragedy.  It is a tragic story but a very domestic one.  This is not about kings and queens, and you are not in a fantasy world. 

You are in a very real situation about a boy who goes to stay with his friend in posh house and he is somewhat out of his depth.  He is innocent in a world full of rules he doesn’t understand and he naturally slips into the position of a go-between thinking what he is doing is right and that completely wrecks his life, and those around them. 

I find it the most extraordinary story and it has real resonance for today.

Paul Clarke: So is this a conventional musical? 

David Wood: The style of this musical is unlike any other.  If people come along expecting it to be like Grease or My Fair lady or Annie, wonderful as they are, this is very, very different. The music goes through the piece in quite an unusual way. 

The songs are not sung in the same way as a conventional musical, where people talk and then they go into song and then talk. They’re not the sort of songs you might hear on the radio. 

Here the music comes in when it is required and there is no conventional verse structure in the songs.  There are some wonderful tunes but it is a very unusual convention I think. 

I don’t want that to put people, off as it is not trying to be arty farty.  It is not trying to be operatic with a capital O at all. It’s a tender story, which I think is imaginatively told. I hope that it is something that will be seen as groundbreaking. 

Performance details are: Evening performances: Fri 9 September – Saturday 1 October (Mon – Sat, 7.30pm); Matinees: Sat 17, 24 (2.00pm) Thurs 22, 29 Sep (1.30pm). Tickets: £17- 27 (Concs available). A limited number of free tickets are available to under 26s Monday – Thursday. Friday 9 Sept – Sat 1 Oct. Tickets are available from the Box Office on 0113 213 7700.