Performers feel like prisoners

There can be no doubt of the huge benefits to children from performing on stage, whether it be acting, dancing, singing or playing an instrument. Performing in front of an audience helps boost confidence and overcome shyness and will help them achieve more later in their careers and personal lives.

It teaches discipline and they learn how to work together as a team. It gives those less able academically a chance to shine using other skills.

Every week, hundreds of thousands of children across Kent attend dance, ballet or musical drama classes with hundreds of groups, and most will put on at least one show a year to showcase the skills the youngsters have learnt.

Anything that discourages these public performances therefore has to be seen as a bad thing.

This week we learn that some people are beginning to see the safeguarding regulations intended to keep the youngsters safe backstage as a burden that is actually turning children off taking part.

‘We feel like prisoners,’ complain the kids who have to be escorted everywhere by a chaperone.

It’s a difficult balance. The props and weights and ropes backstage of most theatres can make them dangerous places where youngsters can’t be left to run around.

And of course today, we are also very aware of the need to keep the children safe from predators, especially when they may be undressing to change into costume.

Today’s world is fraught with difficulties. For example, the guidelines suggest that theatre and dance groups should not allow children to keep mobile phones or iPads with them, in case something inappropriate is accidently or purposely posted online.

Yet any parent today will know how difficult it is to separate a child from his or her mobile.

These are problems with no easy solution.