Kids Put Up A Dance Drama On Grandparents

Here is some awesome 'grandparentiana'.

Some 40 youngsters have asked their grandparents to talk about themselves as teens, which they are recreating in a stage musical, titled Dirty Stop Outs in Halifax this weekend, according to bbc.

Strangely, the grandparents seem to reflect the title quite aptly. "Well, we were dirty stopouts, yes," Eileen Madders says. "We'd go out at seven or eight o'clock on a Saturday night and we wouldn't come home till three or four o'clock in the morning."

She is Joseph's grandma. Eileen Madders, is amused that she seems so incredible to him. "I think he was quite surprised that we used to go out quite so much as we did in those days," she says with a smile. "We probably went to more exciting places than he goes to. We had good times."

Just 17, Joseph Madders finds his grandparents unbelievable. "They went out dancing and partying," he breathes. "It was very weird to hear some of the stories that came out of their mouth."

"I found out my grandma was quite the rebel in her age," says 17-year-old Lucy Barker. "Which was fun to know. "I thought she was quite sensible. But everyone's young once, I guess."

It is tough to believe that they were hip or cool once. "Well, yeah. It's hard to admit really because you think of them as the old people in your life. But yeah, they were cool once and they used to go to concerts and party and be teens, basically."

The drama project is being conducted by Youth Music Theatre, which is the country's main musical theatre company for the youth. Its singers include Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith.

Toby Turpin, 15, also finds it odd that he should think of his grandparents as young. "I've never actually thought about when they were younger. My grandma's always been my grandma. She's always been - I wouldn't say 'old', but she's always been quite elderly - and I couldn't get my head around the fact that she had a life before she had children. So I can relate to my grandma now."

His grandma Valerie puts it into picture. "I used to go dancing quite regularly, sometimes twice a week," she says.

However, there seems to be more drinking today, she feels. "We just went there to dance, and there wasn't any drinking. I think it's such a shame today that the youngsters seem to just want to meet and drink."

About 40 youngsters between 15-21 have put up the show and will be part of it. Dirty Stop Outs.

They have also spoken to Leeds People's Choir and Holmfirth Friend to Friend group. The show was started by Alex Silverman , who read about "the rising number of older people in society".

"I wanted to find a way of properly engaging and talking to our elders and betters about the things we have in common," he says. "Some of them are the people who invented what it was to be a teenager. The generation that didn't go to war, that had greater opportunity to go to university - the baby boomers.

"These are people who really created the mould for what it is to misbehave as a young person. And I'm not sure everybody appreciates that fully, so I wanted to give them their proper dues."