The full cast has been announced for The Children’s Theatre Partnership and Royal & Derngate, Northampton’s co-production of Unexpected Twist, which is set to run at Leicester’s Curve theatre Tuesday 6 to Saturday 10 June. In that play, I had to rush across the stage and say to one of the girls in our class (acting the part, of course) that I loved her and thought she was beautiful and how her eyes looked like the stars…etc etc It was so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o embarrassing. And then – I had to grab her hand too! Oh no! But yes! I don’t think that the girl herself liked me very much so that made it even more embarrassing! Help! Michel Rosen is the English children’s novelist, poet, and the author of 140 books. He served as Children’s Laureate from June 2007 to June 2009. He has been a TV presenter and a political columnist and his books include Carrying The Elephant: A Memoir Of Love And Loss and Uncle Billy Being Silly.

In Miss Cavani’s English class, everyone is reading Oliver Twist, and Shona finds that there is quite a lot of similarity between her situation and Oliver’s. When one of the older boys at school offers her a free phone in detention, Shona really wants it – she can’t afford a phone otherwise. But what will she have to do to get it? I just say, ‘You get on with it. It’s your show, along with all the work, investment and responsibility’. I’m always slightly suspicious when somebody pops in and says, ‘You know, you could do this or that’, and then clears off. When I was a teenager, I used to go once a week to the Questors Theatre in Ealing. I belonged to the Young Questors which was a drama club but quite serious in how they taught us how to act using what are called Stanislavsky techniques. We had two teachers, Rena Rice and Larry! I thought they were brilliant and we did all sorts of shows – a mix of plays and sketches. One I remember was the play ‘The Red Velvet Goat’ and we all forgot when to sing the theme song of the play, ‘La Cucaracha’, so Larry, who was waiting at the side, started singing it for us and we pretended that he was on stage and one of us!Michael Rosen is the English children’s novelist, poet, and the author of 140 books. He served as Children’s Laureate from June 2007 to June 2009. He has been a TV presenter and a political columnist, and his books include Carrying the Elephant: A Memoir of Love and Loss and Uncle Billy Being Silly. And here’s the listing for the one I did for Shakespeare Week. I hope that a recording of it will go up soon. Shona’s Nan, Polly Lister, suffers ‘the old sunny dancer’ and truths claw their way to the surface, dusting off the domestic abuse that Miss Cavani, Rosie Hilal, suffers at the hands of her boyfriend sees an immense pressure building and pummelling down on all shoulders till the weight becomes excessive to bear. Not everything is as it seems as the fight for freedom intensifies. Here’s the photo I tweeted of me outside our old flat – I deliberately chopped half my face off, by the way!

The duets between Shona and her dad, Thomas Vernal, really tug at the heartstrings and Vernal’s fantastic harmonies and stage presence gel the whole performance together with love running deep between father and daughter. The creative team also includes Sarah Stacey (associate director), Gurkiran Kaur (voice coach) and Kate Waters (fight director) with production management by Martin Thompson (Northampton) and Ben Arkell (tour), company stage management by Lisa Lewis (Northampton) and Neil Bull (tour). The team is completed by Karen Habens (deputy stage manager), Sara-Jayne Smith (assistant stage manager), Charles Parry (sound No1) and Molly English (head of wardrobe). Yiddish can be written with the same letters as the ones you’re reading now but originally and traditionally it’s written with a form of Hebrew script. There are 40 letters. How many of these do you think I knew before I started? Just 3! Here is the alphabet: Rosen reads the book himself, and as a well-practiced speaker, he's an engaging narrator. Oliver Twist works when read aloud, as the narrator of this is also talking direct to audience at times. Michel Rosen is the English children’s novelist, poet, and the author of 140 books. He served as Children’s Laureate from June 2007 to June 2009. He has been a TV presenter and a political columnist, and his books include Carrying the Elephant: A Memoir of Love and Loss and Uncle Billy Being Silly.Writer Michael Rosen and adaptor Roy Williams clearly want to draw parallels with the poverty and despair of the 1830s poor and the present day, with its foodbanks and inflation-ravaged political climate. But the fact remains that Unexpected Twist is arguably a bit of a misnomer, all the action being entirely predictable. A few surprises were required… but unfortunately, they never materialised.

The play cleverly interrogates a great deal of sociopolitical issues, including youngsters turning to crime to support themselves and their families financially. But it all felt a little bleak. It began quite fun, with lots of comedy, but it soon took a dark turn. It could have done with a little more comedy throughout; it was a little too heavy and serious, especially for a kids’ show.

Interview: Jimmy Nail and Ian La Frenais

A modern Red Riding Hood, goes off through the woods on her talking pony and she’s in for a big surprise. Unexpected Twist follows a teenage girl called Shona (Drew Hylton), who recently lost her mother. She and her father (Thomas Vernal), who recently lost his job, have been moving from place to place and living on chips. Her maternal grandmother (Polly Lister, who also plays Aunt Lorraine), who is involved in some dodgy business, has fallen ill – much like Shona’s dearly departed mother. Shona joins a new school, and her English class is studying Oliver Twist (as if her life was not already hard enough, but hey, at least it’s not Shakespeare). Shona soon gets into the wrong crowd and discovers easy ways of making money – albeit, illegally – much to the chagrin of her father and the concern of her grandmother, who does not want her granddaughter to take after her. With a careful rewrite of both the book and the songs – with a little oom-pah-pah in the gruel – this could be a darn good show. There’s a sequence of poems I do in my performances which you can find in my book Michael’s Big Book of Bad Things. There are four sections called just that: ‘Big Book of Bad Things’. I used to perform it quite often before I got ill, but I haven’t done so since because I got a little bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to remember it all. Anyway, I was in Malvern for the Malvern Festival of Ideas and I thought, I’ll give it a go. And I could remember it! I was surprised and pleased! Why surprised? Because I do worry sometimes that my memory has been affected by having been in an induced coma for so long. Well, the memory of those pieces is still there! Shona’s life is a reflection of Oliver’s. Her sympathetic English teacher, Miss Cavani (Rosie Hilal), who has seen innocent but impressionable children corrupted, attempts to use Oliver Twist to help Shona understand the situation she is in – and how to get out of it. Shona recognises the similarity between Oliver and herself, comparing people in her life to characters from the novel (Cavani is Nancy) and even envisioning characters coming to life – like a psychological horror – whilst insisting that she is not Oliver Twist.