Interview: Toby Thompson, ‘The Little Prince’

This Autumn at Theatre Royal Bath’s The Egg, Toby Thompson will present his adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel, The Little Prince. Performed by Thompson too, audiences will be enter a world of endless sunsets, where people are like flowers, and grown-ups are, well, pretty peculiar. Ahead of its run, we spoke with Toby Thompson to find out more.

 1. To begin with Toby, can you tell us a little bit about you and what drew you to poetry as a career?

A bit about me. Hmm, let’s see. I have blue eyes and no siblings and bad circulation due to tallness and a scar on my left hip from when I stood on an unsound wicker stool at the age of three and it collapsed into a monstrous pile of splinters and nails. My entrance into the house of poetry was through the backdoor of hip-hop: I fell in love with the art of rhyme as a teenager, my twin obsessions of music and language finding a deep sense of belonging in the craft of lyricism.

2. Throughout your career, what have been your main sources of influence and inspiration?

Anyone who speaks with eloquence, in whatever form or context. As a young child, I would contentedly while away untold hours listening to audiobooks on tape cassette; and really nothing has changed there except for the listening technology. I am inspired by novelists, rappers, storytellers, philosophers, scientists, comedians, songwriters, playwrights and poets. To name a few especially passionate loves: Joni Mitchell, Rumi, MF Doom, David Whyte, Robin Williams, Kae Tempest, Hermann Hesse, Gerald Durrell , PG Wodehouse. 

3. You are adapting The Little Prince at the Egg this Autumn, what inspired you to focus on this story in particular?

Honestly, the theatre suggested it to me, sometime during the first lockdown. I was living in Normandy at the time and had only a vague recollection of the story from childhood. I remember downloading the audiobook and going out into the garden and pottering a weavesome path among the birch trees and listening to the whole two hours straight through. The story struck deep chords; indeed, I recall that throughout the final 30 minutes I had tears streaming down my face! And they were the sorts of tears that are infused with happiness and with sadness and with everything in between. Of course I had to say yes, I’d give the adapting a go!

4. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in adapting such a beloved and iconic story?

When I began work on the script, I felt enormous reverence for Antoine’s original, and that did prove to be something of an impediment early on. The Little Prince is in many ways a more complex tale than any I’ve previously tried to tell: it contains more characters; more twists and turns. It is essentially a story within a story within a story, and consequently, the tenses can get a bit confusing if not handled deftly. 

So to begin with I found myself doing a lot of analysing; a lot of preparing; a lot of mental striving to discover the mechanics of the story. My stance towards the story was that you might have an exquisitely beautiful but also highly delicate and fragile object. I tentatively tip-toed—not a style of ambulation known for getting one very far. 

5. The Little Prince explores themes of childhood, innocence, and the nature of love. How did you ensure these themes resonated with your new adaptation?

Will you permit me to answer this fine question with a paradox? I shall take that as a yes. The best way I found of ensuring that the many rich and profound themes running through The Little Prince resonated in my version was precisely by ceasing to attempt to ensure any such thing. As previously mentioned, I started out with an over carefulness. Things only really started to flow when I gave up trying to understand the story and instead leant fully into feeling it. When the writing ceased to be a process consisting of intricate and dizzying mental gymnastics, and became instead a joyous playful romp through the realm of the imaginal, then the themes began to sing of their own accord. It was my job to get out of the way and let the story sing through me. 

6. How did you balance staying true to the original text while also bringing your own interpretation or modern touches to the adaptation?

My process went something like this: I’d take a part of the story and read it a bunch. Then I’d put the book away and tell that part of the story aloud, to double-check I had the essentials of the gist in my memory. Then I’d light a fire—I’m now thinking back to the months I spent writing in Normandy—and spend an evening pretending. Pretending to be in that particular situation, in that time and place, in the body and mind of that character.

I don’t have a formal acting background, so I was really just channelling my only-child-bored-on-a-rainy-day self; talking in funny voices; strutting around pretending to be a King or a Businessman or a Snake or whoever. And whenever anything happened that felt worth noting down—due to seeming particularly moving or profound or amusing or whatever—I’d note it down. In this way I spent the evenings fleshing out scenes in my imagination, and then the following morning I’d wake up and get to work on bringing those presentiments and snippets from the night before into something more shapely; some kind of structure with a beginning middle and end. 

7. You are also a Bath local and seen shows at The Egg, what does it mean to be able to bring your work back to this space? 

I feel a deep sense of contentment performing at The Egg: the building is home; the people are family; I worked as an usher here for many years; I’ve been performing my poetry in this auditorium since I was 12 years old. Opening night at the egg is like playing a final on home turf.

8. The show is suitable for young audiences, why is theatre important for young people?

When I think back to my own experiences of watching theatre as a child, what I remember are those first moments after stepping into the hushed and enchanted atmosphere of the auditorium and feeling myself to be totally in another world. The unsayable delectableness of that memory suggests to me that children have a more highly developed ability to lose themselves in the magic of theatre than adults. I feel it would be a shame for a talent such as that not to be put to use.

9. Finally, why should people come and see The Little Prince?

I don’t know that people should! They certainly shouldn’t come because of any feeling of should. Life is full of duties, many of them undoubtedly necessary and noble, but please god let not this be another one! Please let the theatre not be another chore. Come if you feel like being told a story. Come if you feel like having nothing you need to do for a whole delicious hour, nothing but listen and watch and laugh and think and breathe and feel and be as you are, together in time and space with me, the little prince, the flower, the king, the vain man, the fox and all the others. 

And if you do choose to come, not because you should, but simply because you can, because you are alive and free, then I can promise you a feast for the senses. And I can promise to be over the moon to see you.

Catch Toby Thompson’s The Little Prince at The Egg from 26 September - 6 October 2024.