Gorgi Coghlan is a Co-host of
The Project on Network Ten
6:30 pm weekdays.
It was printed clearly on the ticket. Not
suitable for children under 6 years. What was I
doing? Was I being a bad parent? Will my daughter
have nightmares after seeing this? It was too late.
We were here and I had to trust my intuition. This
is the right decision. The theatre was packed and
full of young children, parents and grandparents
filing down the aisles. We took our seats. Looking
around I couldn’t see any other children as young as
my daughter. What have I done?
Over the low hum of excited voices the orchestra
warmed up. One of my favourite sounds. As the
lights dimmed and the chatter ceased, I looked at
my almost 4 year-old daughter’s face and knew I’d
made the right decision. Matilda the Musical burst
onto the stage, and for the next two and a half hours
she sat captivated and utterly mesmerized by the
song and dance spectacular unfolding in front of
her. Her eyes didn’t leave the stage once. Not even
during the not so spectacular numbers (come on,
every musical has one). She left the theatre asking
me when we could see ‘Matilda’ being naughty
again?
Something changed in my daughter that day.
Musical theatre had unlocked a door into a land she
felt comfortable in. A land where she felt she
belonged. A land where singing and dancing were
encouraged and celebrated.
She very quickly became obsessed with all
things Matilda the Musical. And I’m talking fullblown obsession; learning all the lyrics to EVERY
song, reading books just like Matilda (another
bonus for me!) and deciding she wanted to learn tap
dance to one day be on stage ‘just like Matilda’.
We’re talking about a little girl who insists on
Matilda at the London West End in 2014
watching any YouTube performance of the Matilda
cast to get her fix. We’re talking about a little girl
who says to me, ‘Mummy can I be Matilda on stage
one day?’ Whether she wants to go on the stage in
future is up to her. My husband and I want our
daughter to simply be happy and decide for herself
where her future dreams lie. But watching our
daughter appreciate the joy of what a musical has to
offer and the confidence she has gained has given
me such enormous happiness as a parent.
I can still remember my first musical. It was
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. I
was in love. I’d never seen anything like it. The
huge patchwork multi-colored coat billowed on the
stage as Joseph (who I remember was wearing
Woody Allen type glasses) sang the score with