‘Birthday workshops’ for chic children

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 49

‘Birthday workshops’ for chic children

By

JANE EYRE,

A.A.P. correspondent, through NZPA London Forget scraping splatters of raspberry jelly off the walls and picking up mashed meringues from the shag pile. Plain old parties of the slave over a hot stove, chocolate crackle and sausage roll with sauce variety are now out for British kids. Birthday workshops have arrived. Trendy British parents are paying £93 ($246) to let somebody else do the dirty work and provide the entertainment. The workshops ensure children become highly competitive and upwardly

mobile. The entire professional deal is planned with precision, down to choices between the usual birthday fare of cakes, biscuits, potato chips and baked beans and the likes of cheese, crudites and muesli bars.

Companies who run them let the kid of the day pick the theme. Space Pirates, fairyland, Mary Poppins ... whatever appeals.

All mum has to do is drop the children at the venue — some theatres in London stage them — and pick them up again two hours later. The kids have stage make-up slapped all over them. In Space Pirates, Captain Moonblood

charges round the room giving them code names before they land on forbidding planets. If they start whingeing for food before the appointed time, the captain hands out “space rations” in the form of lollipops. One company running birthday workshops, the Unicorn Theatre, claims it is a far more equitable way for kids to be entertained.

No competion in the wardrobe stakes, since they all have to wear something practical for the play sessions. They can get dirty, be entertained and might just learn something while they are at it. Two hours of rowdy activity are followed by a

variety of different menus about £2.50 ($6.62) a head.

A birthday cake with blazing candles, also with a theme of the child’s choice, is ceremonially carried in to a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday to You.”

Views of the experts (the kids) vary.

Some reckon it is not as good as McDonald’s parties, and others would prefer the best dress and patent leather shoes outlet. All a bit like school really — terribly educational.

But, they all agree, it is the state of the art partywise.