The next interview in our stagey chat series is with Peta Maurice. Peta is the director of The Detective Dog, a stage adaptation of the book of the same name, by Julia Donaldson. The show features BSL and dynamic captions meaning it's accessible for more audiences.

Hi Peta, how are you doing today? Thanks so much for chatting to Stage to Page! Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers and telling us how you first got into the theatre industry?

Hi! Yes, I’m Peta Maurice and I am an actor and director working primarily in family theatre. I think the story of how my career began is probably similar to a lot of people’s. I had always grown up around the arts as my parents were singers and heavily into amateur dramatics. I soon became absorbed into performing in these groups, at school and the local youth theatre. I then studied Theatre and Media at University, met some amazing and inspiring people and from there, started writing and directing my own children’s productions. I was never really one for waiting for an agent to call, so I created a company which supplies actors for training, and I still run that alongside my theatre and voiceover work.

It was really when I had children of my own that I realised the significance of communicating through signs as we used a lot of signing before they could speak. I started studying BSL and am still very much on that journey but have become very passionate about the importance of inclusivity and incorporating sign language into theatre and children’s storytelling.

The Detective Dog is based on the best-selling children's book of the same name from Julia Donaldson. Can you tell us about the story and how you worked on bringing the book from page to stage?

The Detective Dog is the story of a young boy named Peter and his incredible dog, Nell. Nell, the detective, uses her sense of smell to solve crimes such as where Peter’s toys have disappeared to and who did the poo on the new gravel path’! Every Monday Nell goes to school to hear the children read and one Monday they discover that all of the schoolbooks have been stolen. So, Nell, Peter and all the other children go on an adventure following Nell’s nose to track down the perpetrator!

We always start in rehearsals by reading the story together and looking at the illustrations. Because the story is being lifted off the page and needs to be longer than the 10 minutes it takes to read it, there are a lot of details in Sara Ogilvie’s pictures that we were able to bring to life around the main story. We have lovely little details and moments in the show that are recognisable to families with the book. Our designers, Katie Sykes and Ruby Brown did a fantastic job of ensuring our show was in-keeping with the book visually. We also wanted to bring Nell to life by creating a life-like puppet and Jess Jones has made us the perfect Nell which audiences fall in love with!

What do you enjoy the most about working on family shows like this one? Especially with a story from such a well-known and loved author.

What I love about Julia’s stories is that she always writes from the heart; her stories always have a purpose - the purpose of this one being the importance of books, libraries and falling in love with stories. She manages, in quite short tales, to take the reader on big adventures, and The Detective Dog is no different. When recreating this story for the stage it was easy to find the dramatic moments where the stakes are high, those moments where we could find silliness and the moments that pull at heartstrings. I really enjoyed working with the brilliant performers who found their own inner child in order to tell the story and sweep the audience along.

It’s such a joy to get to work with different people at the start of every project. This particular project had such a lot of creatives working on it and the rehearsal room was full of fun and laughter because of it. Because of the show being produced for deaf and hearing children we had two languages in the room at all times, and this made for a fabulous (and chatty!) atmosphere.

The Detective Dog has been created with accessibility in mind, adding the use of dynamic captions and incorporated BSL. Can you tell us more about this?

When Tiny and Tall Productions asked me to direct for them and we started the project, we knew the story was going to be retold for deaf and hearing children alike so in order to make it as visual as possible we needed to extract some of Julia’s words and turn them into exciting sequences that honoured the story and the illustrations. The words that are spoken are simultaneously signed using BSL. We also use dynamic captioning for all the spoken words, sounds like ‘WOOF’ and to highlight the rhythms of the songs. I wanted to make sure that all of this was integrated into one picture and that the elements blended nicely together, and I would say that was one of the biggest challenges. As we only have 3 performers, the logistics of whose hands were free for puppeteering and whose were free for signing became a major part of the choreography. It was also very important to me that the songs that were in the show were also as visual as possible so we’ve integrated heavily rhythmic but simple dancing, lights that pulse in time and animated music notes on the screen to indicate that music has started.

My blog is called Stage to Page. But if you could turn any book, from page to stage, what would it be and why?

Good question! There is a great children’s book called You Must Bring a Hat by Simon Philip which I wanted to get the rights for - I had chats with his literary agent but alas, it was too expensive. Maybe one day… If not, maybe Forth Wing - that would be epic.

And finally, why should people book tickets to The Detective Dog UK tour?

You should book tickets to see The Detective Dog because it’s 52 minutes of non-stop adventure performed by three fantastic performers and a very cute dog puppet. Feedback from our hearing families has been that it was wonderful that the children wanted to learn more about BSL afterwards and the feedback from deaf or hard of hearing families has been that it was brilliant to feel so included…so you can’t lose! You’ll feel a lovely sense of togetherness sitting in the audience.

You can book tickets to the UK tour of The Detective Dog, here.