Not just kids' stuff: James Lomas, George McGuire and Liam Mower in Billy Elliot. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
They say never work with animals or children, but Mike Bartlett's My Child at the Royal Court has got me wondering - at least about the children.
The play is about a divorced father denied access to his nine-year-old son. Sacha Wares - a director going from strength to strength - has cast a child actor, Adam Arnold, as the sullen boy. Arnold gives an eerily restrained performance that would put many grown-up actors to shame. As he mucks about with his remote-control car and calls his dad a wanker, his big green eyes are as coolly blank as headlights. You recognise this kid: he's a spoilt brat, and the playwright quietly sets about showing us why.
There is nothing soggily sentimental about Bartlett's view of childhood, and when the boy finally shows a flicker of affection for his father, it's wrenching. The child is both a fully-fledged character and a prism through which we observe the adult world around him.
Musicals have been doing a better job of providing nuanced depictions of children on stage recently. Caroline, or Change and Billy Elliot are proof that there are child actors around who can more than hold their own on the boards. But by and large, it is still rare it is to see very young actors playing anything other than gruesomely cute token presences.
There are practical difficulties in casting children in plays. Producers usually have to find several child actors to perform on alternate nights and hire minders to keep an eye on them. Using them in film and TV is much easier: directors can, if necessary, do dozens of takes to nail the performance they want. But are child actors really more of a pain in the neck to work with than grown-up ones?
I'd be interested to know why, for instance, the part of the nine-year-old girl Eva in Kindertransport is played by an adult in the Shared Experience production. The actor does her job efficiently, but the effect would be very different - and perhaps more discomforting for the audience - if a child played the part. I missed the 1999 revival of Robert Holman's Making Noise Quietly, but I wonder if a real kid was cast as the mute autistic child.
Admittedly, plays can explore childhood and parenthood without involving children: the marvellous Cake used puppets and wooden spoons to do so. Still, I wish directors and playwrights were a bit bolder in using kids on stage, though I can see that some parents might balk at letting their little darlings audition for Medea or the ten-year-old nicknamed "party piece" in Mercury Fur, to whom very nasty things are done (albeit offstage).
There's no shortage of meaty roles for teenagers, but when it comes to complex characterisations of under-12s, the stage lags behind other mediums. Am I alone in thinking there is something curious about an adult theatre culture that prefers not to see and hear youngsters?
