The Two Howards

Before we speak, I feel like I already know Howard Read—better known as Big Howard—and his animated sidekick Little Howard; I've seen their CBBC television show Little Howard’s Big Question where they ask those all-important questions like "Why do I have to share?" and "Why can't I be bigger?" My kids and I laugh at their silly—slightly naughty—humour. But whilst I know that it works very well on television, I'm less sure how this will translate to a stage show when one half of the double act is a cartoon boy. 

“We’ve really developed the technical bits. I say ‘we’. I refer to him as ‘we,’ which is slightly psychotic,” laughs Read. The development of these ‘technical bits’ means there is now one big difference; it has its unique selling point – it’s live. Lets think about that for a minute. Live cartoons, talking back. That’s pretty impressive. 

“His voice and all of his movements are controlled by me live on stage. It’s completely revolutionalised what I’ve been doing. Little Howard can now host the show. He can talk to the audience, pick out someone in the front row and ask what he or she had for breakfast. When the kid answers, Little Howard can respond and they can actually talk to each other in real-time, which is quite cool. It also means that the show can be absolutely different every night.

“Before, my shows have all been sort of comedy plays because Little Howard was all pre-recorded and any interactive bits had to be through me, whereas Little Howard is the one that kids are much more interested in because, well, he’s a cartoon. Now we can also do a lot of panto stuff, have the kids shout out, come up on stage, so suddenly toddlers as young as three are interested and engaged.”

What prompted him to look at developing this aspect of the show? Did our generation of technologically savvy kids expect more? “Not that I’ve noticed," he says. "It mainly comes from me feeling that I could make my shows better and working out a way to do that. So it’s really exciting making it a much more immersive and interactive experience. We can do funny, we knew that, but it was a case of getting the smaller children in and entranced.

“The brilliant thing about kids is that the audience are the stars too. Usually when someone heckles me at my grown-up show its obnoxious and because they hate you. But with kids they just want to tell you about the plaster on their finger or that their Dad’s got a shed, which is brilliant. Now Little Howard can tell them how many sheds he’s got. It doesn’t occur to them that a cartoon boy wouldn’t be able to do that. It’s a lovely state for your mind to be in.” 

Read, himself a dad of two, is clearly very fond of this animated six-year-old boy. Maybe this shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the character has been in his life for six years, longer than his own children. Little Howard sounds like he’s part of the family, with Read's own kids quoting him and vice versa. Yes, you can credit Read's young son for the show's 'slug in the toilet' poo anecdote. So if he didn't have children when Little Howard was created where did the original character come from? “His personality was based on me as a kid," he says. "I was quite severely dyslexic so I constantly misunderstood the world—and words—and how it all sort of worked. I think my brain does look at the world in a slightly skewed way, different to other non-dyslexic adults.”

Weirdly, it might also have been Little Howard who kickstarted Read's road to parenthood. “I think having Little Howard made me feel quite clucky. I was getting to that age when you start thinking about having kids and—strangely—having an animated boy around all the time made me want it a bit more. The trick about writing for Little Howard is getting into the mind of a child. So it helps having some running around the house.”