'The Young Visiters' At The Tabard Theatre

Victorian child's eye view of the world, complete with idiosyncratic spellings

The Young Visiters is the most famous book in history written by a nine-year-old.

Daisy Ashford was a precocious Victorian child, and her comedy of manners giving a child’s-eye-view of the adult world was championed by J.M. Barrie and first published in 1919 (28 years after it had been written), complete with idiosyncratic spellings.

Now Rough Haired Pointer (Diary of a Nobody, Fred & Madge) are giving London audiences another chance to see their adaptation of this cult book at The Tabard Theatre in Chiswick for four weeks only in March.

Mr Salteena is a very elderly gentleman (of 42), “fond of digging in the garden and parshial to ladies if they are nice”. He and his young, somewhat snobbish friend Ethel Monticue (who has an unhealthy passion for “ruge”) go to stay with a young Lord, Bernard Clark who is “inclined to be rich” in his “sumpshous” house, where Mr Salteena hopes he will be helped up the social scale and thereby win Ethel’s heart. While he is packed off to be given some London polish at the Crystal Palace by one of Bernard’s friends The Earl of Clincham, speaking looks are exchanged between the young pair and Mr Salteena’s plan is inevitably foiled.

The Young Visiters is full of innocent – or not so innocent – double entendres and Ashford’s eye for adult absurdity.

The play will be performed from 1 - 26 March at 7.30pm on Tuesday to Sunday with Saturday matinees at 4pm. Tickets cost £17 (£15 for concessions) with £10 tickets available for the performances from 1-4 March.

Box Office: 020 8995 6035.

February 22, 2016