The anachronistic fantastic : science, progress and the child in 'post-nostalgic' culture

This article argues that the `genre-slipperiness' of recent media products have been accompanied by a form of `time-slip'. Such happily anachronistic texts self-consciously fuse the nostalgic with the futuristic and suggest comfort and unease with both. In this respect, they might be seen to do damage to notions of linear development, but arguably display love as well as criticism of different forms of progress. This article suggests three different ways of mixing pasts and futures: futuristic texts looking forward to a time when society returns to historical roots; more `combinational' approaches, which juxtapose pasts and futures with a degree of equality; and `technostalgia', nostalgia but to a post-industrial era. Throughout, examples involve young people, as it is argued children have an especially ambivalent role with respect to time, providing a cogent focalizer for the study of aesthetics of anachronism

Little monsters: gothic children and contemporary theatrical performance

The Gothic, in literature, in film, and on the stage, seems to possess a particular fascination with children. This chapter, in the first instance, introduces an exploration of the representations of children in the post-war British theatre, as both objects and agents of horror, from Kane’s Blasted to McPherson’s The Weir. Secondly, the chapter will examine the emerging appeal of plays such as Jack Thorne’s adaptation of John Lindqviste’s Let the Right One In, and Phillip Pullman’s Grimm Tales which use the tropes, aesthetics and properties of the Gothic as fertile ground for making theatre for young audiences