Only a Kid Having a Kid!

Reviewed by Minna Alanko

Tom McLennan play raises various issues concerning sex and the difficulties teenagers may face when trying to deal with them, from getting condoms to visiting doctors and talking to parents.

A comedy about teenage pregnancy by local writer Tom McLennan, returned to four Merseyside venues on February two years after its premiere in the Unity Theatre. The tour concluded in the Everyman Theatre on 13 February 2003, where the play was performed to a full audience.

Three of the play’s 15 and 16-year-old girls get pregnant and then cover all the options for this difficult situation: Kayleigh keeps her child, Ashley has an abortion and Nikki gives her child to fostering. The fourth girl, Donna, does not get pregnant but she does not have sex. Nikki’s decision to give her child for adoption is revealed at the very end of the play in a somewhat off-hand remark and not discussed any further, only mentioned as the best option for her. This leaves a serious topic flat and slightly disturbing, as so many other issues are dealt with so thoroughly in the play. Whilst concentrating on these four lifestyles, a character that has sex with contraception and does not get pregnant is left out. This is a simple message young people need to learn and which could well have been used in this educational play.

Similarly, the confused emotions of the two main boys of the play are only slightly conveyed and ultimately both come across as careless and selfish. Ste is the father of Kayleigh’s baby and Lee Donna’s boyfriend. Although both boys show some support for their girlfriends – Ste attends prenatal classes with Kayleigh and Lee seems to really care for Donna – the girls end up alone, Kayleigh “up to [her] neck in shitty nappies” as Ste goes out with his mates, and Donna because Lee does not want to wait until she is ready for sex.

The play ends in Donna’s remark about sex as something that is supposed to be pleasurable but causes so much pain. It is undoubtedly essential that young people are educated about the possible painful consequences, but more important is to positively encourage the prevention of the negative, to educate about sexual behaviour of both sexes and the control each individual can take over their own body. The play seems to say “don’t do it, wait”
– but since kids are doing it, appropriate, supportive advice is what they need to be provided with. The educational potential of Only a Kid Having a Kid! is immense but the play does not take all the opportunities it could, resulting in a slightly moralistic aftertaste. Nevertheless, this is a sharp reminder that teenage pregnancy needs discussing; and the topic is here raised with a strong cast of actors and an entertaining yet effective comical approach.

Minna Caught up with Tom after the play

“Love hurts,” answers Tom McLennan when asked about the ending of his play. “I tried to show some of the reality of teenage pregnancy; some of the things you might not consider before you took a chance unless someone had pointed them out to you. The message was to think carefully before you take a chance.” McLennan wrote Only a Kid Having a Kid! for an “Awards for All” Lottery project his theatre group had applied for. “I wrote it with a teenage audience in mind, ordinary youngsters,” he says, and judging the atmosphere in the Everyman, he has the ability to reach his target audience.

McLennan ponders about the reasons behind teenage pregnancy and comes up with a few suggestions: “I think wanting something to happen and the constant pressure to see sex as the big bang that needs to be happening in your life or there’s something wrong with you… I also think that if young working-class women had more challenging job opportunities open to them, that would reduce the rate. I heard that Merseyside was doing quite well at reducing the rate.”

Teenage pregnancy is not the only controversial subject McLennan has tackled. “I’ve written about being in debt, Richard Mather, Puritan minister of the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth; asylum seekers, teaching, the May blitz in Liverpool.” He did a drama class at Shorefields Night School “because I wanted to write drama and have just struggled on since then”. “The good thing about the group I’m involved in” he notes, “is that we can’t afford to say no to any project so that makes you tackle subjects you wouldn’t normally touch with a barge-pole and that’s enjoyable”. Yet the inspiration for Tom McLennan’s writing is his wife. “It gets me away from her!”