At a school hall in Steyning, West Sussex, on a Saturday afternoon, a staggering number of books by Julia Donaldson are ready to be bought by parents and signed by the author. They are arranged on a banquet-length series of trestle tables, but still represent only some of the back catalogue created by one of our most beloved children’s writers. Rock-a-Bye Rumpus (2022) is here; Room on the Broom (2001) is there; and in the unlikely event that anybody visiting doesn’t already own at least one copy, they can buy The Gruffalo (1999), Donaldson’s most famous collaboration with illustrator Axel Scheffler. Now 25 years old, the picture book has sold almost 12 million copies.
Later, I ask Donaldson, 75, how many books she has published, and she says it’s more than 200 – ‘and they are just about all still in print’. Despite an attention-grabbing career that has seen her awarded an MBE (2011) and a CBE (2019), Donaldson is low-key, so it’s no surprise when she adds, ‘They’re quite short, and I’m quite long in the tooth now, so it doesn’t actually mean I’m slaving away writing every second of the day.’
Indeed she isn’t, because there are shows to put on. That’s why we’re here at Steyning Festival, a fortnight-long cultural event founded in 2006 to boost the local community in and around Donaldson’s home town. I am set to watch her second performance today of stories and songs for children. A member of her publishing team tells me discreetly, ‘This show is like the Beatles for toddlers.’
Donaldson’s publishing career goes back to 1993, when a song she’d written for BBC television, ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’, became her first book, with illustrations by Scheffler. But her performing career goes back further. ‘Growing up, we were in the children’s opera group in Baker Street,’ her sister, Mary Moore, 73, tells me. ‘Even when we were tiny, Julia used to write little shows that we’d do in the front room.’
Donaldson says, ‘I loved the theatre. I was terribly stagestruck from a very young age.’ When she was 12, she understudied the fairies in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Old Vic in London; it was 1960 and other cast members included Judi Dench and Tom Courtenay. Donaldson went on to study French and drama at university, which involved living in France for a spell. A couple of friends came out to visit, among them Malcolm Donaldson, who later became her husband. ‘We went busking,’ she says. ‘Then when we got back to England, Malcolm and I carried on doing a lot of performing. If there was a student ball, or some dentists had a dinner and they wanted cabaret, we’d go and sing songs.’
They’ve never stopped. Putting on the shows is the perfect counterpoint to producing the books. ‘The writing side is solitary and the performing side is gregarious, and they are equally important,’ says Donaldson. Her favourite element is deciding which books to adapt and how best to bring them to life: ‘That’s the most creative and enjoyable part of the job.’
It’s not easy, however, and I’m impressed by the pair’s energy levels. ‘You have to do the sound and lighting cue sheet, and you need to get to the venue early and set up,’ she explains. ‘Afterwards, there’s a signing, and then you have to pack up all the props and spend about a day putting them away – so to do one author appearance takes days of work.’ She pauses and adds drily, ‘I suppose some authors just sit down and someone says, “Where did you get the idea for this book?” and they go, “That’s an interesting question.” Money for old rope, really.’
Backstage in Steyning, I meet Malcolm, 75, a jovial retired consultant paediatrician. The couple lived in Glasgow for many years with their three sons, Alastair, 43, Jerry, 37, and Hamish, who took his own life in 2003 aged 25. Malcolm’s patients would sometimes attend the shows. ‘But I’m not sure they liked seeing Dr Donaldson acting the clown,’ he says. When he was younger, Malcolm played the lead role in his wife’s story The Smartest Giant in Town, ‘But the giant takes his clothes off, and I just felt I couldn’t do that within a 40-mile radius of Glasgow.’
Today, a new member of the cast is being fussed over: Sam the dog, who will appear in the story The Hospital Dog. ‘Malcolm found him in the post office,’ says Donaldson. ‘There was a woman in the queue with her docile dog, and Malcolm, being Malcolm, said, “Would your dog like to be in a show?”’
They say you should never work with children or animals, but here they are doing both, and they have no plan if Sam has an attack of nerves. ‘We know it’ll go down well, whatever happens,’ says Mary.
Children from her own family have also performed in the shows, including Mary’s granddaughter Lola Young, a talented singer-songwriter who is now signed to Island Records. By coincidence I attended one of her gigs in a grimy London club some months ago; it was a young crowd, but not as young as her great aunt’s.
Two professional actors – Joanna Hutt and James Huntington – are joining the cast, and here, too, is a personal connection: Hutt has known Donaldson, a friend of her mother’s, since childhood. It’s not just friends and family who get roped in; Louisa, the publicist who organised my interview, is also playing a role (and a terrific performance it is, too). Who would say no to being part of something so lovely?
Julia, with husband Malcolm, collecting her MBE, 201
As showtime approaches, the building fills up. The show begins with ‘Funny Face’, a silly song about expressions. Sure enough I find myself baring my teeth, rolling my eyes and twitching my nose as enthusiastically as the under-fives. Even my cool nine-year-old niece is enjoying herself. ‘Give your face a double chin,’ goes one of the lyrics, and Donaldson adds a quiet aside for the mums and dads: ‘which gets easier every day’.
We move on through a performance of The Bowerbird and a reading of her latest book, The Tooth Fairy and the Crocodile. Then there’s The Baddies, for which Donaldson plays a witch in a yellow pinafore and black hat, and Malcolm a troll in a green fleece and brown wig. The kids watch in rapt silence and a little girl in the third row squeezes her teddy bear tightly.
Next up, A Squash and a Squeeze, with impressive farmyard puppets. Finally it’s time for the main event: The Gruffalo. ‘This is one of my lesser-known books,’ jokes Donaldson, who is the mouse, while Malcolm plays the fox, with a suave, Bill Nighy-esque charm. I’m not sure who is inside the Gruffalo costume, although I’m told that, to stop the actor fainting from heat exhaustion, it contains a fan. The children shriek with delight when the beast appears. They know all the words and shout along, ‘There’s no such thing as a Gruffalo!’
Afterwards, I tell Donaldson how impressed I was by Malcolm’s performance as the fox, and she laughs. ‘His fox is much acclaimed. But it’s a bit like me writing The Gruffalo – we both want to be praised for something else. He loves it when people say, “You’re so good at the guitar,” but all they ever say is, “Oh, your fox is so good.”’
I suspect people say both, because Malcolm is wonderfully talented. Today he must rush off, but under normal circumstances he sings to entertain the parents and children who queue to have books signed. The two have been married since 1972; a photo on Donaldson’s website shows them side by side in their youth, her singing, him with his trusty guitar.
I start to ask whether, if she’d married someone else, she’d be doing these performances – but Donaldson answers before I’ve finished the question. ‘No, I don’t think so. Malcolm’s a huge part of the shows. I couldn’t contemplate doing them without him, and I wouldn’t want to.’
The Tooth Fairy and the Crocodile by Julia Donaldson is published by Macmillan Children’s Books, £12.99. To order a copy for £11.04 until 25 August, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Free UK delivery on orders over £25.
