Awards

• Short-listed for Brian Way Award 2009 (UK)
• Short-listed for John Whiting Award 2009 (UK)
• Winner of Writers' Guild Award for Best Children's Play 2009 (UK)

Overview

Imagine swapping places with a monster for day... A funny and thrilling play for children (aged 6+) about friendship and facing up to your fears. Ben has a BIG problemo. His best friend Vince has stolen his precious binoculars, his Dad is far, far away... oh, and there's a monster under his bed. But when Ben swaps places with the underbed monster, Ben's life - and his school - is turned inside out, and upside down. First presented as a staged reading in April 2008, at the John F Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C, USA, as part of New Visions/New Voices. First produced at Polka Theatre, 6 June 2009. North American premiere at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People, Toronto, March 2010. Resources for teachers and parents: Polka Theatre's free Monster Under the Bed Activity Pack download contains activities for you to do with your children after you have seen and/or read the play. Most of these exercises are drama based and are good for developing speaking and listening skills. All of the exercises are suitable for both KS1 and KS2 pupils. Watch Allen MacInnis, Artistic Director of Young People's Theatre (Toronto), talk about the play https://youtu.be/sYyqA6rR7F8.

Full Product Details

9781906582074

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Reviews

This energetic comedy for six to 11-year-olds is on at the Polka Theatre in South-West London until July 25. The script, unillustrated yet set in eye-friendly size text for easy following, will provide lots of raucous chuckles after the show. The play is about a boy called Ben, whose dad, a soldier, gives him a pair of binoculars before going off to war. When Ben's best friend Vince takes them, Ben swaps places with a monster to get them back and his day turns into a disaster. Drawing on The Borrowers and Roald Dahl's BFG, this is an imaginative new work from a diverse and experienced writer. Dyer's The Bomb, about the 1984 IRA Brighton explosion, won an Arts Council award. Whatsonstage.com Drawing with delicacy and wit upon the childhood fantasy of the monster under the bed, writer Kevin Dyer proves why that endangered species, the original play for children, is worth saving. This is a terrifically entertaining story about fathers and sons and the monster inside all of us. Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

Drawing with delicacy and wit upon the childhood fantasy of the monster under the bed, writer Kevin Dyer proves why that endangered species, the original play for children, is worth saving. This is a terrifically entertaining story about fathers and sons and the monster inside all of us. What's more, it is positively postmodern in its literary references, with shades of The Borrowers, and a Father Underbed Monster who bears more than a passing resemblance to Roald Dahl's BFG. There's plenty of fun as the Little Underbed Monster takes Ben's place at school for the day, causing havoc in the classroom ... the over-sixes will just enjoy the romp. It's a joyful examination of the benefits and snares of believing the ridiculous. Lyn Gardner, Guardian

“Drawing with delicacy and wit upon the childhood fantasy of the monster under the bed, writer Kevin Dyer proves why that endangered species, the original play for children, is worth saving. This is a terrifically entertaining story about fathers and sons and the monster inside all of us. What's more, it is positively postmodern in its literary references, with shades of The Borrowers, and a Father Underbed Monster who bears more than a passing resemblance to Roald Dahl's BFG. There's plenty of fun as the Little Underbed Monster takes Ben's place at school for the day, causing havoc in the classroom ... the over-sixes will just enjoy the romp. It's a joyful examination of the benefits and snares of believing the ridiculous.” Lyn Gardner, Guardian

Author Information

Kevin Dyer Kevin became a writer at the age of nine and a half when his primary school teacher, Mr Fox, typed up a story he had written. The fact that one month later the nice Mr Fox ran him over in his car (and Kevin had to go to hospital, have stitches in his head and still bears the scar – all true) did not deter him. He is now an experienced playwright with over 40 commissioned plays behind him, a published poet, a leader of many creative writing sessions, and has been a magazine and newspaper journalist. He also works as an actor and a theatre director. As the Associate Writer for Action Transport Theatre he has written The Fool on the Hill, co-written Night Train and Twelve Miles from Nowhere and been part of many collaborative writing projects. His play The Bomb, about Jo Berry (whose Dad was killed by the Brighton bomb) and Pat Magee (who as a member of the IRA planted the bomb), won the Arts Council’s New Writing Encouragement Award. He has also written two large-scale, open-air shows for The Dukes, Lancaster: Beauty and the Beast and Jason and the Argonauts, and has just finished Baghdad Zoo as part of ‘Playhouse’ for Dundee Rep / Theatre Royal Plymouth / Polka Theatre and York Theatre Royal. He’s also written plays for Travelling Light Theatre Company, Nottingham Playhouse Roundabout, New Perspectives, Sixth Sense Theatre and many others.

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