The play’s the thing that childhood is missing

Lady Macbeth has been staying in our spare room. She’s an absolute sweetheart, but there’s quite a lot of handwashing going on. Actually, Lady M is called Isabella, she’s 17 and part of Young Fry, a group of teenage actors.

To my astonishment, the Boy is directing them in a production of Macbeth, which they’re taking to the Edinburgh Fringe in a few days’ time.

This ambitious (ahem) plan nearly came a cropper when they couldn’t afford to buy the abridged version of the play. Himself stayed up half the night to do it instead. He claims that poor Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy is now so short, it basically goes “Witches, eye of newt, Och, woo-hoo!, Out, damned spot, out! Och. Thunk. Blood-curdling scream. Curtain.”

I don’t care how bad (or good) it is. This production has wrought a miracle. With something to concentrate on for 10 hours a day over the holidays, social media is forgotten. The kids come home famished, pongy and exhausted. But it is, as my son said late last night, “a really good kind of tired, Mum”. That kind of tired has almost disappeared from the lives of offspring sitting in front of screens. When you read about something called a “Playing Out initiative”, encouraging children to do what their forebears did for centuries, you know that childhood is in trouble.

The bit that brought tears to my eyes was when it was reported that, given a place to run around and meet other kids, an old-fashioned “calling for you” culture developed.

The play – whether it’s Shakespeare or heart-bursting fun outdoors – really is the thing.