Renowned kids' author Andy Griffiths on 'getting rid of the bums'

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This was published 6 years ago

Renowned kids' author Andy Griffiths on 'getting rid of the bums'

By Jorge Branco

For many Australians of a certain age, The Day My Bum Went Psycho was their introduction to glorious, unbridled, hilarious, nonsense literature.

But for its author, much-loved children’s writer Andy Griffiths, it was the day he “got rid of the bums” that everything changed.

Treehouse series author Andy Griffiths and editor Jill Griffiths at QPAC ahead of the premiere.

Treehouse series author Andy Griffiths and editor Jill Griffiths at QPAC ahead of the premiere.Credit: Albert Perez/AAP

With other previous titles including Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict and What Bumosaur Is That? the sudden scarcity of derrières was a rapid departure.

But Griffiths, who writes with illustrator Terry Denton and editor/wife Jill Griffiths, credited the shift first seen in 2011’s The 13-Storey Treehouse with widespread international success.

Standing onstage at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre ahead of Wednesday's world premiere of The 78-Storey Treehouse stage show, Jill noted the books were now “huge in Norway”, big in South Korea and published in 30 different countries.

“We got rid of the bums,” Andy said.

“We got rid of the really extreme types of violent humour that me and Terry love so much and Jill, you know, not so much.

“We kind of got it all out of our systems.”

The author who broke onto the Australian scene with Just Tricking! in 1997, said the series was a “lovely synthesis” of classic children’s literature and what the trio did best.

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“Until Treehouse we assumed we were a totally Australian flavour like Vegemite,” he said.

The series sprung out of Griffiths’ failed attempt to write a follow-up to The Very Bad Book, spawning a meta book about Andy, Terry and Jill (actual character names) trying to write a book.

By the time the sixth instalment - 78-Storey - came around, a big-shot Hollywood producer, Mr Bigshot, was looking to turn the ridiculous treehouse adventures into a movie, and stuffing it up royally.

Andy Griffiths says the stage is a perfect place for his books to come alive.

Andy Griffiths says the stage is a perfect place for his books to come alive.Credit: Albert Perez/AAP

“There's something about the stage that really suits the books,” Griffiths said.

“Theatre is so much closer to reading than say film and that’s partly what we’re playing with in this production.

“Mr Bigshot, the Hollywood director comes in and totally takes all the charm and all the fun of the books and tries to make it into a big Hollywood action movie.”

That makes the QPAC production a play based on a book about someone trying to make a movie out of a book about two authors struggling to write a book. Just Confusing!

Griffiths promised school holiday audiences “mad rollicking rambunctious idiotic fun” from Richard Tulloch’s adaptation, saying theatre was often a completely new experience for kids.

And as for what path the trio would take when Hollywood big shots came calling again, as they had done before?

“We're not keen to rush into it because our readers do have such an ownership and they’re very protective of the treehouse books,” Griffiths said.

The 78-Storey Treehouse plays in QPAC’s Playhouse Theatre from December 13 to December 23.

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