My Curious Documentary imagine...

The stage adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling novel

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time

opened here on the smallest stage of the National Theatre

on London's South Bank

in 2012.

It went on to win seven Olivier Awards,

transferred to the West End and then went on tour in Britain.

And the Broadway production has recently taken New York by storm.

The story in both the book and the play is told by a 15-year-old boy

who finds other people frightening and confusing.

And it has helped transform our understanding

of a neurological condition that affects 1 in 100 children.

That boy is called Christopher.

And tonight on Imagine... we bring you

his very own documentary,

with a little help from friends.

This programme contains some strong language

CITY NOISE

ELECTRONIC MUSIC

Somebody that he's trusted all his life

has suddenly become untrustworthy.

Somebody who's not autistic would think,

"Well, just cos you killed a dog

"doesn't mean you're going to kill a human being."

You killed a dog out of anger,

but to a neuro-typical person,

a dog is probably less significant to another human being.

But somebody on the autistic spectrum wouldn't make that interpretation.

They'd be just, like, "Well, you killed a dog, "so you could kill a person."

Ah, great.

I found out I was on the spectrum when I was 12.

And the reason I was told

was because I started asking my mum questions

about why I was different.

In what way did you find yourself being different?

Well, I got bullied, but also, I liked computers,

and...I think that I struggled socially.

I never realised when I was at school that...

And I think Christopher, if he was a real-life person,

he'd properly learn this when he left school -

that there are many people who like many different things

that aren't necessarily mainstream.

But I didn't know that when I was at school,

and I just thought I was always going to be lonely.

KIDS SCREAMING

SCREAMING CONTINUES, CRASHING MUSIC

-WOMAN READS:

-"It was seven minutes after midnight.

"The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn

"in front of Mrs Shears' house.

"Its eyes were closed.

"It looked as if it was running on its side,

"the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream.

"But the dog was not running or asleep.

"The dog was dead."

What the fuck have you done to my dog?!

"There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog.

"The dog was called Wellington."

So I began with this picture of a dog with a fork through it.

No real idea of where that came from

except that I have quite a black sense of humour,

and I thought there was something absolutely hilarious about it.

I mean, it's never funny - never funny - onstage,

but in my mind, I thought there was something really blackly funny

about that.

But to make it funny, you had to tell the story in a certain way.

And that was the genesis of Christopher.

-WOMAN READS:

-"My name is Christopher John Francis Boone.

"I live at 36 Randolph Street, Swindon, Wiltshire.

"I know all the countries of the world and the capital cities,

"and every prime number up to 7,507."

Then we've got...

We've got masses of these.

These are...

-Christopher's book.

-Oh, right.

And we have masses of them because they get really trashed.

So, this is the beginning of the story.

We're meant to be writing stories today,

so why don't you write about what happened to Wellington last night?

-OK, I will.

-I can help you.

Will you help me with the spelling and the grammar and the footnotes?

So, this is the book that Siobhan starts reading

at the top of the show.

"I find people confusing.

"This is for two main reasons.

"The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking

"without using any words."

What was central to me in the adaptation was the notion

of making Siobhan, his teacher, the narrator of the piece.

In the book, she's quite an ephemeral figure,

or she's quite a marginal character in the book.

She's the heart of the play.

It struck me that I think everybody has a favourite teacher.

English... No, we don't want to go to that one.

We don't want to go there.

We can go to Maths and we can go to Science.

She reads Christopher's book

with exactly the same perspective as we read it.

She's astonished by his imagination.

She cares for him, she understands things

that he doesn't understand himself.

The whole play is based around her

effectively falling in love with Christopher,

and falling in love with his ambition to solve the mystery

of who killed Wellington -

to solve the case of the curious incident

of the dog in the night-time.

-CHRISTOPHER:

-I've decided I'm going to try

and find out who killed Wellington,

because a good day is a day for projects and for planning things.

Who's Wellington?

Wellington is a dog that used to belong to my neighbour Mrs Shears,

but he is dead now because somebody killed him

by putting a garden fork through him, and I found him.

Then a policeman came and thought I'd killed him, but I hadn't.

Then he tried to touch me, so I hit him.

-Then I had to go to the police station.

-Gosh.

I'm going to find out who really killed Wellington

and make it a project.

In school, we have 36 children.

Our smallest class is three

and our largest class is six.

Well, actually, we've had a new body, so it's seven.

But we try and keep about six.

So, they're very small.

But our kids are very complex young people.

HE SQUEALS

-Kids get breaks.

-I like it when Adam and Martin come here.

-Do you?

-Yeah.

What are you doing at the moment, Ruben? No.

-I'd just like to feel that.

-Yeah, but you can't.

-Why?

-Ask.

-Can I feel that?

-Yeah.

Aw, it feels like...cat fur, a bit.

-Doesn't it, Adam?

-It's not cat. What do you think it is?

What is that fur?

I think it's fake fur.

-Oh, but does it look like cat fur?

-A little bit.

Ask... Do you know what it is?

Fake fur, he said.

Reuben, do you know what that is? What it's for?

-What's that for?

-It's a microphone.

Really?

Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello...

..Yes, that would be lovely.

'Simon felt... When he was reading the book,

'he felt what was exciting about it was that,'

as you were reading this book,

you suddenly realised that Christopher had been told

to write a book

and that this was the book that he had written.

So, you were reading his words.

And so that's what he wanted to do with the stage adaptation,

that then it was a play.

And, oh, we're watching the play

that he'd written from the book that he'd written.

Christopher, I want to ask you something.

I was wondering

if you'd like to make a play out of your book.

I think a lot of people would be really interested

in what would happen

if people took your book and started acting bits out of it.

No. I don't like acting.

Because it is pretending that something is real

when it is not really real at all, so it's like a kind of lie.

But people like stories, Christopher.

Some people find things which are kind of true

in things which are made up.

You like your Sherlock Holmes stories

and you know Sherlock Holmes isn't a real person, don't you?

I noticed a dog in the yard. Does he sleep out there at night?

Yes, always. He's a very good watchdog.

You didn't by any chance hear him barking during the night?

No, I didn't.

No.

I was given the collection of Sherlock Holmes books

and collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories...

-The red one?

-No.

-Because I've got the red one.

They were in two separate volumes - short stories and...

Oh, I've got the huge one...

that I need a special bag...

I need a special bag to carry it around.

What do you like about Sherlock Holmes?

He's a detective.

He actually works very much like how I work.

I don't leap to conclusions if I don't have enough evidence.

Because, like, if I saw my shoe, I wouldn't automatically

jump to the conclusion that it was mine.

Because someone else could have lost exactly the same shoe.

And also because loads of television versions of Sherlock

seem very autistic.

Do you think in the books that he seems a bit autistic?

Yes.

Although, annoyingly, they hadn't actually discovered autism

by that point, so it's impossible to actually tell

if he would have been diagnosed as autistic.

Any other point to which you want to draw my attention?

Well, to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.

The dog was perfectly quiet in the night.

-No, that was the curious incident.

-Oh.

DOG BARKS

In the book, he describes himself as being a little bit

like Sherlock Holmes in that he can detach his mind at will,

and his brain... Well, it's a bit like a laboratory.

So that was very much how we decided to design the show -

like a laboratory of his brain.

The first half of the show is like a whodunnit

so we also wanted to make the design a bit like an incident board

in a crime room in a police station.

Can I help you?

Do you know who killed Wellington?

Who the fuck is Wellington?!

-Mrs Shears' dog.

-Someone killed her dog?

-With a fork.

I'm going to make this one like a whole block colour.

Well, maybe Christopher wants to be a detective

to try and make the world make sense to him or to try

and understand it or to try and solve the problems around him.

But you'd probably like me to paint something specific, wouldn't you?

-Like something a bit more figurative?

-Not necessarily.

Because these paintings aren't about anything in particular.

I'm kind of like... It is a little bit weird, painting

when you know that you've got you and Martin

standing in the corner. It is a little bit weird!

Christopher is making logical assumptions

about the world around him and the world is illogical,

the world doesn't make sense, and that's a big problem for people

on the spectrum, understanding that the world doesn't make sense.

In some ways, his world is quite straightforward

and quite...yes, literal, but in other sort of areas of his mind,

he is an incredibly gifted thinker.

Animals, maths, space, computers,

there is a purity to them which is

the way that Christopher sees the world, really,

and would like the world to be.

I think it's the complexities of other people

and human behaviour which Christopher finds, really,

a struggle to deal with.

When I first wrote the script, what I was trying to do

was get as deeply as possible into Christopher's mind,

and that, actually, was always one of the challenges of the whole

production - taking the audience inside Christopher's brain.

I think it was key to Bunny's work, designing it,

and, really, the essence of Marianne's production.

I suppose, for me, the play is about...isolation

and a lot of the prime characters feel isolated

and I think that probably Mark and Simon and I

have a strong connection to what that felt like

as we were growing up - in different ways for all of us.

I like looking at the rain.

I like it because it makes me think

-how all the water in the world is connected.

-Is it?

This water, this rain, has evaporated

actually from somewhere like maybe the Gulf of Mexico, maybe,

or Baffin Bay, and now it is falling in front of the house

and then it will drain into the gutter and then it will flow

to a sewage station where it will be cleaned, and then

it will go into a river and then it will go back into the ocean again.

He sees things that the rest of us do not see - he sees beauty,

he experiences wonder in a way that no-one sitting in the audience

does about certain things.

As a result of that outside point of view, he looks back at us,

and one of the experiences of reading the book

and hopefully one of the experiences of watching the play,

you start to realise how odd we are and how odd our way of life is.

And you only have to take a few steps outside the boundary

of normality to think, "We are very odd indeed, all of us."

Hello. Are you filming us?

Why?!

Hello!

-'I don't always do what I'm told.'

-'Why?'

Because when people tell you what to do, it is usually confusing

and does not make sense. For example, people often say,

"Be quiet," but they don't tell you how long to be quiet for.

Marianne tasked me

with becoming a sort of mini-expert in autism or Asperger's, so I bought

textbooks, I read blogs, I found out as much information as I could.

I contacted schools and Marianne was really keen that we went

to meet some teachers and some pupils and some families

who have experience of autism or Asperger's syndrome.

Hello.

-Your room?

-Well, this is my room.

This is a map of London.

I've recently become very interested in London boroughs.

It may seem quite stereotypically autistic to a lot of people,

but it is very fascinating knowing which district is in which borough.

What's that list?

Oh, stuff that I need to remember to pack when I went up to Liverpool.

Toothbrush and toothpaste and CD,

because it was my backing track for a poem that I performed then.

I would also like to...

Why did you need a list?

To help me remember. Why else?!

Do you make lots of lists?

Um, yes, quite a lot.

Well, actually, it is my mum that makes them, if I'm honest.

I went to a lot of different schools for autistic pupils

and one of the things which always stayed with me,

which I think one of the teachers told me,

was that it's like the water in the bath is always spilling, it's always about to spill

in someone like Christopher, and so, at any moment, you are

desperately trying to hold on to the bathwater and it is always about

to spill out because the world is so random to him and everything that is

not planned and everything that is not expected for him is scary.

-Here we are.

-Here we are.

When we first did the workshop in here, that was four years ago.

-This is in this room, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Chris was being picked up in that.

It looked much better when I saw it in the play.

I kind of can understand why they left the bath bit out.

I nicked little things off you, you know this,

I have told you this before.

-Borrowed is how I would rather put it.

-You what?

-Borrowed.

-Borrowed, yes, I didn't steal yours.

But I borrowed some of the little things which I thought...

-That thing.

-This.

Can you explain that to us?

-Flick this round...

-I can, yes.

Basically, I am in my own world,

I am playing a counting game in my head.

I am making somebody older or making them younger,

or, basically, I am counting from one extreme to another

like thinking of a word that is not offensive

and thinking of the worst word, or vice versa -

making it cleaner or dirtier or, you know...

Does it make you feel calmer? What's it called?

It is called daydreaming, really.

It is something that I do when I'm daydreaming.

In the play, I think, for me, it became

something when I was very anxious or stressed.

-When I am anxious or stressed, I usually make noises, I do.

-Right.

Well, Christopher makes noises.

The noises were great, I could totally see myself in you

when you were performing.

We had read about it in books, we had seen documentaries, but...

-Well, you're hearing it from the horse's mouth.

-Exactly.

-And, you know, I am using a...

-Using a metaphor.

-I am using a metaphor there!

-I know.

When I was young, if you had said this...

If I heard somebody say that about 20 or 15 years ago,

I would have said, "A horse's mouth? Horses don't talk! Neigh?!

"What does that mean to be people?!"

The second main reason I find people confusing is that people

often talk using metaphors.

The word metaphor means carrying something from one place to another.

And it is when you describe something by using

a word for something that it isn't.

This means that the word metaphor is a metaphor.

When we look at Christopher,

we could say that he is at the high functioning end

of the autism spectrum, and it is a very broad spectrum.

Intellectually, he is very gifted,

he is even precocious in some subjects, like mathematics.

But if you analysed his communication,

even then you would realise that despite the presence of language,

he still has communication difficulties.

One example of that is taking language very literally.

So assuming that what people say is what they mean,

whereas a typical child, very early on,

understands that what people say isn't always true.

They might be joking, they might be using language in a figurative way,

idioms or metaphor.

Christopher is taking words as literal

and that's very common in people with Asperger's syndrome.

They don't see the point of some kind of gap between what you say

and what you mean.

Mother died two years ago.

I came home from school one day and no-one answered the door,

so I went and found the secret key that we keep under

a flowerpot outside the kitchen window.

'It is all a metaphor.

'I think that the death of Wellington the dog'

and the way that Christopher feels about that and then obsesses

about it and decides to become a detective to work out who killed

the dog is all a metaphor for how he feels about the loss of his mum.

What was your mother like? Do you remember much about her?

I remember 20th July 2008.

I was nine years old.

It was a Saturday.

We were on holiday in Cornwall on the beach in a place called Polperro.

-PA:

-The next Manhattan-bound local train

will arrive in approximately two minutes.

I grew up in England from when I was 7 until I was 18.

I went to school there in Devon.

But the rest of my life, I've been travelling.

First seven years of my life, I grew up in a caravan

travelling around the United States and Canada and Europe with my family,

obviously, not on my own, that would be impressive!

This is my first job.

-How does it feel?

-Awesome!

I'm sorry. Your mother's died.

She's had a heart attack.

It wasn't expected.

What kind of heart attack?

I don't know what kind of heart attack.

Now isn't the moment, Christopher, to be asking questions like that.

It was probably an aneurysm.

The death of the dog is connected somehow, possibly...

well, definitely subconsciously

in Christopher's head to the death of his mum.

If he discovers who killed Wellington,

he will then discover the truth about his mum.

It is a transference of grief,

so his mum has died, he hasn't been able to grieve

because he doesn't know how to, he doesn't talk about it.

The dog is dead and he starts to really properly investigate

and mourn that.

My situation was an absolute nightmare.

Because when he got about two or three, I knew there was

something wrong because he couldn't communicate good.

I mean, like, when you go on the street, we would see neighbours

and they would say, "Hi, how are you today?"

He would just stand there and look at them.

You know, I've always been intuitive with my son

and I would tell him what to say, and just looking at him,

I could tell he just did not know how to have a conversation.

So I told his doctor, and the problem I had was, he looked normal

so the doctor didn't think anything was wrong.

His teachers didn't think anything was wrong, they thought

he will grow out of it once he starts school, he will be fine.

No, that did not happen. I was not able to get a diagnosis until

-he was 11.

-What was his life like in school prior to the diagnosis?

Nightmare. It was an absolute nightmare.

Accused of poor behaviour?

Yes, the teacher locked him out of the classroom, he was bullied,

his life was threatened and I fought, I fought the board of ed

and I fought and fought and finally I was able to get him

in private school, but it is still a struggle, every day is a struggle.

I am not going to say it's easy. It's not.

What can I say? He is my son. I'll do the best I can.

What was your mother like? Can you remember much about her?

I remember 20th July 2008.

I was nine years old.

It was a Saturday.

We were on holiday in Cornwall.

We were on a beach in a place called Polperro.

The routine of having a mother figure is broken.

And Christopher lives in patterns, in a world of patterns,

so he knows he comes home at this time

and he does this at this time, and once the mother figure

has disappeared from his life, his routine is shattered.

So if he can reconnect to that and form some sort of routine,

waking up at this time, going to school

and doing these things at this time, then life is perfect.

Life is fine because it fits into nice compartmentalised boxes.

Sunday, you are going to wake up.

You are going to do... What next?

Wee-wee, brush your teeth.

Get dressed. Have breakfast.

-What do you want for breakfast?

-Um... Cream toast.

For breakfast?!

-And honey toast.

-OK.

When you are on the autistic spectrum,

routines can be very important, because if you have difficulties

with social imagination, if you find it difficult to know

what is going to happen next, then having a routine is really

comforting because you don't have to worry about anything unexpected.

-Let's do three more, Mummy, and then we will be done.

-OK.

People on the autistic spectrum often have difficulties with

flexibility of thought.

It is as if you are a train on a train track

and going along a single train track, and suddenly a huge

brick wall has appeared in front of you and you can't go backwards.

All you can do is smash into this wall and you can't go any further.

Whereas a nearer typical person would see lots of different routes

that one could take instead, so that you could go around the wall

and you could carry on, but that isn't the way that many

autistic people are able to think.

-How do you like it?

-Just white, thanks. No sugar.

-Yeah, same, please.

Routine, the basics of what is happening when, how,

with whom, are kind of...

It is at the centre of his everything.

It is the fear of the unknown. It's terrifying for him.

At two and a half - two and a half - when I would pick him up

from nursery, it was a ten-minute drive home

and one day I turned left, I went on a different route

instead of turning right, and he started screaming.

From a quiet car to screaming his little heart out

and I worked out quite soon after, once I knew about...

that's what it was, because he must have been taking a photographic

image of the roads and memorising it to comfort himself

and I didn't go that way, and he just...couldn't handle it.

He eventually got diagnosed when he was three and four months or something.

There was a relief that there is a specific condition this boy

has got and a reason for all the behaviours.

It wasn't me not weaning him properly.

He was fussy with food, there was a lot of guilt, why is he like...?

Did I not engage with him properly? Did I not...?

Constantly going on websites about what is meant to happen next.

Oh, God, I didn't do that. Is it my fault?

-What would he like, then?

-Oh, he would like to go on a bus.

If I say, "Let's go on a bus," he will be great.

"Let's go on the 82 to Victoria." He will know every stop from Finchley.

-It takes three hours.

-What do you mean, he knows everything?

He knows the name of the stop?

Of each stop and the number and the sounds.

You will hear him at bedtime reciting back,

"The next stop is Victoria Park."

Buses and trains are everything because he can control

the stimulation of the sound of the roads.

He loves... Lampposts is his current passion.

-FATHER:

-Christopher... Do you understand that I love you?

The thing that comes out so strongly with you two and I think in the play

is that the love is never in question,

but it is how you deal with that.

-Presumably, you give love but you don't get it back.

-No, you don't.

It is not love in the way that you've expected it,

whatever expectations you've got as a parent.

It is certainly not what I expected.

But that tiny, tiny little thing will happen...

A little bit of progress or...

It's funny, that in the play, when he puts his hand up.

We naturally do that with Isaac. It is massive.

I asked my parents whether they felt that I didn't love them

like other children did and whether they felt unloved

or if they felt having an autistic child was bad in some way.

And they said that they felt that people, when they have kids, that maybe

they have different expectations, but they just had an expectation

they would have a live baby and that was all that was important

so whatever I did didn't really matter.

Taste?

Orange juice.

-Daddy.

-Yeah.

-I love you.

I love you, too.

Nice. I love you.

Do you know what?

When we saw the chicken, was it a daddy or mummy?

When we were on holiday.

When we were on holiday, Mummy, when these boys were not here.

Well, when we were on holiday, there was a daddy chicken

and he is called cockerel and he had all the red, all that red skin.

-Was he a grown-up chicken?

-He was a grown-up chicken.

Which station is near the chicken's house?

You definitely know.

-Maybe it's Falmouth.

-Falmouth. That's right.

We're on the train to Connecticut, Milford.

Connecticut to visit the set where that's being built.

They've been painting all the panels

so today I need to check some of the paint finish on the panels,

because last time I was there, it was a little bit shiny.

And then they are raising them up

because they will start all the wiring into the back of them

so that all the LEDs and pixels

and everything get put into all of that, so the whole kit can come into

the theatre ready wired and finished, and that is the idea, anyway!

Do you like computers?

Yes, I like computers. I have a computer in my room.

And I like maths and looking after Toby and I like outer space

and being on my own.

-I bet you're very good at maths, aren't you?

-Yes, I am.

I'm ready to take my A-level maths next month

and I am going to get an A*.

Now, that looks great.

'It had to be a piece of imagination.

'The more realistic you made it, the more domestic and clunky

'and heavy it felt...'

And as Christopher says in the play,

he doesn't really like acting or plays because it is like a form

of lie, so we never wanted to make it seem like a form of a lie.

It was clearly what it was, the props clearly displayed,

the actors clearly displayed,

and they're hopefully taking the audience with them on this highly

imaginative, suggestive, stylised way of telling Christopher's story.

All of these lines have been routed out, so that's done by a computer,

so it's really, really crisp and accurate,

so it makes it look like graph paper.

Mr Boone, nobody has ever taken an A-level examination in the school before.

He can be the first, then.

I don't know if we have the facilities at the school to allow him to do that.

Then get the facilities.

Christopher could always do his A-levels later, when he is 18,

which is, after all, the age everyone else takes their A-levels.

Christopher is getting a crap enough deal already -

don't you think? - without you shitting on him

from a great height as well.

Jesus! This is the one thing he is really good at.

Christopher does have probably different relationships

to your typical 15-year-old, so he has a good relationship with his rat,

Toby, but also he thinks about maths a lot

and in some ways I would have said he has a relationship with maths.

It is what he finds comforting, it is what he turns to when he is stressed.

I suppose a bit like a comforting blanket, or perhaps you would go

to your parents more often.

128, 256, 512, 1024...

We also see in Christopher that he loves patterns,

being able to recite prime numbers, because the sequence never changes.

A prime number will always be a prime number

and there must be something quite reassuring for people with autism

that they want to find their solid anchors in the world.

And what seems to be the case is that a lot of that circuitry

for making sense of the social world,

the brain-based circuitry for being able to anticipate

another person's reactions, being able to read someone else's emotions,

seems to not be functioning in the very intuitive or natural way.

So the social world becomes a world of confusion

and unpredictability, whereas the world of repetition,

the world of objects, the world of numbers,

becomes the much safer, more predictable world.

I think I would make a very good astronaut.

To be a good astronaut,

you have to be intelligent, and I'm intelligent.

You also have to understand how machines work,

and I'm good at understanding how machines work.

You also have to be someone who would like being on their own

in a tiny spacecraft thousands and thousands of miles from the surface

of the Earth and not panic or get claustrophobia

or homesick or insane, and I really like little spaces,

so long as there is no-one else in there with me.

And I would be able to look out of the little window

in the spacecraft and know that there was no-one else

near me for thousands and thousands of...

-Christopher!

-What?

Could you please just...

give it a bit of a break, mate?

MUSIC: Astroboy by Adrian Sutton

When I'm in the middle of my thing, I get absolutely livid

when my mother calls me and interrupts me.

I always snap at her and say, "What?!" But...

When they're in their zone.

But I need to remember she's not trying to be a pain, either,

the same way. Parents are trying to think the same way about us.

It goes hand in hand.

Yeah, and that's probably just families, right?

He can tell you any way you want to get...

He's memorised every bus stop in Manhattan.

I mean, if you want to know if there's a stop on the north side

-or which side or in-between, he can tell you.

-Wow.

And I call that superhuman powers.

LAUGHTER

-I don't think that's...

-I would like that.

I don't think that's weird, I don't think it's a quirk,

-I think it's awesome.

-Yeah.

-And that separates them from your typicals.

I think it's awesome.

If you want to get from here to, let's say,

to Inwood - 207th Street, take the... Well, the 20.

God knows when it'll come, but the train,

I strongly suggest take the A train cos it's express.

-Just take that straight up.

-Really?

-Straight up.

See, the way I've been able to cope with him

and to help him is to try to always look through his eyes,

even though I can't, but I know my son better than anyone

and when I get frustrated with him, I must always remember how

he sees things and that helps me to have patience with him.

So do you guys know when we're going to see Curious Incident?

It's, what, next week?

-Yep, a week from today, so how do you think we're getting there?

-Tube.

So here's the theatre, OK?

We're going to take the Northern Line to Leicester Square.

So we take the Northern Line by Charing Cross,

get off at Leicester Square

and then it's probably about a ten-minute walk from there.

When you meet people with autism,

I think one thing you're struck by is how individual they are,

that they're thinking in a very fresh way

and that they know what matters to them

and they pursue their interests with enormous passion.

And one possibility is that for a typical child,

they're trying to align their beliefs and their thoughts with other people,

that part of being a typical child is conformism.

Someone with autism, that might not be important.

They have their own curiosity about what intrigues them.

They like to pursue it in enormous detail and depth,

so-called obsessions,

but it also means that they're spotting things that other people

are missing, so they're asking very refreshing, very novel questions.

It gives them, if you like, an originality in how they think

and how they see the world.

In some ways, people with autism are the ultimate anarchists.

Good!

BOY CHEERS

-Where is heaven?!

-Sorry, Christopher?

In our universe, whereabouts is it exactly?

It isn't in our universe, it's another kind of place altogether.

There isn't anything outside our universe, Reverend Peters.

There isn't another kind of place altogether.

LAUGHTER

One of the first lines in the play,

one of the first things he says is, "I do not tell lies."

Actually, he does,

he really does and he has the naughtiness of a 15-year-old.

You know, he has the transgressive spirit of a 15-year-old,

he's a little bit punk.

Another thing he says is, "I don't always do what I'm told,"

and I think in his quest for finding out the truth

of what's happened to his family, the determination to not always do

what he is told is tremendously attractive.

And that's when I saw the envelope.

It was an envelope addressed to me.

I picked it up.

It had never been opened.

It said "Christopher Bloom,

"36 Randolph Street, Swindon, Wiltshire."

And then I saw there were lots of envelopes and they were

all addressed to me and this was interesting and confusing and then

I saw how the words "Christopher" and "Swindon" were written.

I only know three people who do little circles instead of dots

over the letter "I" and one of them is Siobhan

and one of them is Mr Loxley who used to teach at the school

and one of them...

was Mother.

Have either of you guys read the book?

You have, Alex? Oh, really?

Did you like it?

Do you remember what the story was about?

A 15-year-old boy who got tricked by his dad,

whose mother was dead, but she wasn't.

And then I looked at the front of the envelope

and I saw there was a postmark and there was a date on the postmark

which meant the letter had been posted

on 16th October 2011...

..which was...

18 months after Mother had died.

When I started writing my book, there was one mystery to solve.

Now, there were two.

-OK, whenever you want...

-OK.

..come into the kitchen.

-So, do you want to make the tea, yeah?

-Yeah.

-Do you want a sandwich?

-Yes, please. Yes, I would like a sandwich.

When Cian was very young, was he very different to other children?

What made you think...?

Cian talked a lot, talked a lot, and it wouldn't have occurred to me

that he was autistic because he was really good with words.

He used to just seem very bright until he went to school

and then he didn't kind of fit in too well, did you?

-What was it like?

-Oh, school was a nightmare.

It was a very difficult period for me on so many levels.

He was quite...

I wouldn't say normal, but I didn't really have any worries at home.

It seemed to be at school that all these problems were coming up

because at home, Cian was pretty OK and a bit more relaxed.

Well, I remember being difficult at home, I do.

Yeah, a little bit, but when they're your first child, you don't

know what to expect, anyway, so...

No, I didn't think there was anything wrong with Cian.

I actually thought he was particularly bright.

So it was a little bit of a shock when we did get the diagnosis.

Yeah, but I would like to say there is nothing wrong with having autism,

it's just an alternative way of being, as I like to say, you know.

Just something different rather than something wrong, would be

-a better way of putting it, I think.

-Yeah, different, not wrong.

Different, yeah.

We know that autism isn't 100% genetic

so that means that there's room for environmental

or non-genetic factors

influencing why a person develops autism

and so that does mean there might be scope for environmental

interventions, too, and the question about intervention is actually

also a very ethical issue.

Do we want to intervene to try to normalise the child's development

or do we want to respect that this is an individual,

for neurological reasons, who's wired very differently

and we should let them be who they are?

Not trying to change their development

but respect that they are different.

I was expecting Conor when Cian was diagnosed.

I thought that it was highly unlikely

that I'd have two children with autism

but they're like chalk and cheese

because Cian loves to talk, as you can tell...

-Oh, yeah, yeah. My brother is non-verbal.

-So very, very different.

-Yeah.

-They do some things the same, like when you get upset, you both...

-Self-harming, unfortunately.

-And bite your hands.

-Oh, God, yeah.

-Show us your...

-This is evidence, you know.

Conor's got one of them as well, they both do it, like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Why do you do it?

-Oh, I can't really explain why, it's not really that simple.

-Frustration?

Frustration and anger and hating being different to other people.

451C Chapter Road, London, NW2 5NG.

"Dear Christopher...

"I said that I wanted to explain why I went away

"when I had the time to do it properly.

"And now I have lots of time."

When Christopher's mother is reading the letters,

Christopher is playing with trains.

Christopher's using the trains to feel calm and relaxed

and also centred, you know,

because trains are logical, cos they go on a track,

but what he's hearing from his mother is not logical

cos he thinks that she's dead and so it's understandable

why Christopher would turn to something that's so logical.

"I was not a very good mother, Christopher.

"Maybe if things had been different,

"maybe if you had been different, then I'd have been better at it,

"but that's just the way things turned out."

Julie, Christopher's mother, before the play begins,

has become completely overwhelmed with her circumstances and I think

it's mainly to do with the lack of any support or help and, you know,

the socioeconomic place that they live in,

and so she's left struggling alone and becomes very overwhelmed.

..London, NW2...

I know, as a parent,

even without children with those kinds of challenges,

there are definitely times when it's completely overwhelming

and so I don't judge her at all,

I think she was in a life-or-death situation for herself.

And after a while, we stopped talking to each other very much

because we knew it would always end up in an argument.

And I felt...really lonely.

It adds a dimension that he has this disability

but I don't think that that is really what the play is about.

No, it just heightens the relationships

and makes the stakes much higher, but it ultimately is about family.

Yes.

Christopher, what on earth has happened to you?

Would you look after Toby for me?

Why do you need somebody to look after Toby, Christopher?

-I'm going to London.

-So, are you and your father moving house?

-No.

-So why are you going to London?

-I'm going to live with Mother.

I thought you told me your mother was dead.

I thought she was dead, but she was still alive

-and Father lied to me and...

-So are you going to London on your own?

I think I am going to do that, yes.

He's never been outside of his street on his own, ever.

He's very in love with his train set

but it's what he imagines a train to be, it's not reality,

so when he actually does go on his journey,

everything he encounters is new and frightening and confusing.

It's about all of us encountering things that we find overwhelming

and confusing and feeling that fear, but driving through anyway.

ANNOUNCER: ..Western service to London Paddington.

What are you doing at the railway station?

Oh, I'm going to see Mother.

-I want to go to London.

-Single or return?

What does single or return mean?

MUSIC PLAYS

For Christopher, getting the train to London was the biggest event

of his life up to then, really, I think.

SOUND EFFECT OF TRAIN DOORS OPENING PLAYS

Is this train going to London?

Yeah, it's a huge odyssey.

It takes a huge amount of bravery and bottle for him

to get on that train

and survive the train ride hiding in the toilets and the luggage racks.

Because just lots of loud noises on the trains and, you know,

the sound of the engine starting and the voices on the trains...

Cos I used to be very scared of a man's voice on the train

when I was young.

I used to think it sounded like a robot.

It's an important part,

because, you know, he's going all the way from Swindon to London

to meet his mother.

Even though he has a slight fear of going on trains,

he's willing to do that because he loves his mother so much.

Most other people are lazy. They never look at everything.

They do what's called glancing, which is the same word

for bumping off something

and carrying on in almost the same direction.

But if I am standing

and looking out of a window of a train into the countryside,

I notice everything, like, one, there are 19 cows in the field,

five of which are black and white

and four of which are brown and white.

Two, there is a verge in the distance with 31 visible houses

and a square tower, not a spire.

Three, there are ridges in the field, which means,

in medieval times, it was called a ridge and furrow field

and people from the village would have a ridge each to do farming.

We can now look at the structure and the function of the brain in someone

with autism compared to a typical person

and there are many differences that emerge.

The brain in autism is developing faster than a typical brain.

It's ending up larger than a typical brain.

You can see more neurons or nerve cells

and more connections between those nerve cells

so one interesting view is that the nerves are kind of over-connected

which may lead to a sort of information overload...

Six, there's a white Reebok trainer in one corner of the field.

There's a public footwalk sign with graffiti on it.

There's a gate, hedge, telephone poles...

..and that could be advantageous,

it could be that that means that the autistic brain is picking up

more detail so that when it's looking at a problem,

trying to understand, for example, a mathematics problem,

it can pick up more information, more variables,

to really try to understand that system.

But it could also mean that as you're just going on your normal day,

you're picking up too much information -

every blade of grass, every leaf in the tree.

You're not necessarily seeing the big picture.

You're zooming in on tiny details and that that could interfere with being

able to make an ordinary decision, like what to say in a conversation.

HE SIGHS

I waited for nine more minutes,

but no-one else came past and the train was really quiet

and I did not move again, so I realised the train had stopped.

And I knew the last stop on the train was London,

so I got off the train.

MUSIC PLAYS

CHRISTOPHER YELLS

Where is 451C Chapter Road, London, NW2 5NG?

Take the Tube to Willesden Junction or Willesden Green.

Got to be near there somewhere.

In a few minutes, we're going to be leaving.

The show starts at 2.30 and we all know how to behave on the Tube.

Stay close by to staff members, don't talk to strangers.

So we're going to be taking the Northern Line to Leicester Square.

You all know how to act in a theatre,

there should be no talking, not even whispering

because it's really disruptive to other audience members.

No standing up, sitting properly on your seats.

-Yes, because the world is your oyster.

-Did you bring me my snacks?

-CHRISTOPHER:

-Train coming. Train stopped.

Doors open. Train going.

HE HUMS LOUDLY

Train going. Train stopped.

Doors open. Train going.

HE HUMS

Train coming. Train stopped. Doors open. Train coming.

Train stopped. Doors open. Train going.

MAN SHOUTS, TRAIN SHRIEKS PAST

Let's go.

INDISTINCT CONVERSATION

-It's beautiful.

-This way.

They're going that way.

I'm confused.

Right, let's go this way.

-Stuffy in here.

-Yeah.

-I think it's going to give me a headache.

-OK.

LOUD RHYTHMIC MUSIC AND CHATTER

THUDDING MUSIC CONTINUES

BOOM! SHRIEKING

THUDDING AND PIERCING MUSIC

QUIET ELECTRONIC HUMMING

-I suppose this means Ed's here.

-Where's your father, Christopher?

-I think he's in Swindon.

-Thank God for that.

But how did you get here?

-I came on the train.

-Oh, my God, Christopher!

I didn't... I didn't think I'd ever...

Come on, Christopher. Let's get you inside and get you dried off.

TRAIN WHISTLES, APPLAUSE

-Hi.

-Hello.

-Amazing.

-How did that go?

-Well, that was amazing.

-Was it?

-Yeah, really good. Wasn't it?

And what I didn't like about it was his dad telling a lie about his mum.

It was like pretending like she's dead, but she was not.

But his dad said she had a heart attack.

That was a lie and a fib. I wouldn't say that.

-What did you guys think of Christopher?

-I saw a lot of James.

THEY LAUGH

How could you think that, Tom(?)

THEY TALK AT ONCE

It... Basically, because James is brilliant at maths. And...

But I also saw...

He has a calculator with him everywhere he goes.

-WOMAN:

-In his head.

-Also...

-In his bag.

-And in my head!

I only use the one in my bag for backup.

Now, the exam is going to last for 90 minutes, Christopher. OK?

First thing you do, pop your name on the front, OK, young man?

Did you see similarities between yourself and him?

Loads.

Absolutely loads.

-As Tom said, it's basically me.

-Yeah.

-It's basically just me.

Should a triangle with sides that can be written

in the form "n squared + 1..."?

GIRL: I am good at maths myself, though.

I think I'm quite good at maths.

-I'm OK at maths.

-You're tolerable.

-No, no, you're good. You're also very good.

-You are very good, Tom.

-Thank you.

-It's just I don't really know,

because you're doing much easier stuff.

So, to...from my perspective - I don't mean to be rude or anything -

-but from my perspective, it's looking like you're really stupid.

-Yeah.

-But that's only because I am so much...

-Cos you're doing...

-..I am so much further advanced.

-..the higher...

-Papers...

-Yeah.

-..and stuff.

-You're doing basic algebra.

-Yeah.

I am doing simultaneous and quadratic equations.

AMBIENT ELECTRONIC MUSIC

-DAD:

-I wanted to ask you how the exam went.

Tell him, Christopher. Please.

I don't know if I got all the questions right,

because I was very tired and I hadn't eaten

and I couldn't think properly.

Thank you.

-What for?

-Just...

Thank you.

I'm very proud of you, Christopher.

Very proud. I'm sure you did really well.

DOORBELL

All right, Alex, come on in.

So, yeah, if you sit there, that's great.

DOOR SHUTS I'll come and sit next to you.

I wanted to ask you... You've seen the play?

I have seen the play.

And I wondered whether you identified with any aspect

of Christopher's experiences?

For example, he loved maths, and that he was talented at maths.

Can you say something a bit about, you know, your...?

-It was something of a sanctuary with me for school, actually.

-Right.

And what is it about numbers for you?

Well, it isn't numbers for me.

I mean, I'm not good at mental arithmetic.

I think, for me, it's algebraic structure.

-And certain proofs can appear beautiful to me.

-Yeah.

And I... I've done supervisions at Cambridge,

and this came up one time.

And I was proving some theorem,

I mean, a standard proof for the student.

And I was sort of getting enthusiastic,

and... Because it does look really beautiful to me.

And the student said, "I don't think I can appreciate it

"the way you do."

How are you getting on with your father?

He brought me a book which is called Further Maths For A-Level.

He told Mrs Gascoyne I was going to take Further Maths next year.

She said, "OK."

THEY LAUGH

I'm going to pass it and get an A*,

and then in two years' time, I'll take A-level Physics and get an A*.

And then I'll go to university in another town and...

It doesn't have to be in London, because...I don't like London.

And I can have my own flat with a garden and a proper toilet.

And I can take Sandy and my books and my computer.

And then I will get a First Class Honours Degree,

and then I will be a scientist.

What has the experience been like? Have you enjoyed the PhD?

Er, yes and no.

I think that there's been a lot of challenges along the way.

I feel privileged to have been given that opportunity.

Did you have any success in...?

Well, I've never published any papers, so the answer, I guess, is no.

-Um...

-But...

-I have submitted my thesis, so I got through it somehow.

Will you try and publish parts of your thesis?

Well, if-if I am given the help and encouragement.

If I'm left to my own devices, nothing is going to happen.

-Because?

-Because I wouldn't know what to do.

I wouldn't know the first thing about it.

It would be like...

Well, like Christopher at Paddington or wherever he is.

-Just...

-Right.

-And even not that.

Because at least when he's at Paddington he knows...

He has some objective. He has... He has a battle to fight, whereas...

-Sure.

-..for me it would be...

-I'd just drift. I'd just drift away.

-OK.

But what about your life as a student in Cambridge?

Um, well, socialising has been very challenging.

I just feel out of place.

-And I feel alienated.

-Hm.

And I do sometimes think that there's -

I mean, it'll sound perhaps self-pitying to say this,

but it's how I sometimes feel -

that there's not really a place for me in this society.

Yeah.

So it's not because I want to be like that,

it's not because I want to live only in the immediate present.

It's because I think I'm struggling as best I can

-and that's where I find myself.

-Yeah.

Again, maybe paradoxically,

getting the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome...

-It may help.

-It may help, because it puts you into a community.

Very much so. I've already experienced a little bit of that.

Yeah. And that although you've had your own unique history,

you know, the feelings that you're describing of being

something of an outsider to society

is something that most people with Asperger's describe,

and that actually meeting other people

who've got that same sense,

it might actually allow you to connect.

-Well, it's already helped.

-Good.

-I mean, I think... It gives me hope...

-Yeah.

..I think is the way to put it.

You want to go to university?

-JAMES:

-Yeah.

-What do you want to do?

I'm... I'm hoping to go to Oxford...

..to... probably to do Spanish, maths and...

um...

something I'm not entirely sure if it exists. But...

-What?

-I know. I think lots of things that don't really exist.

Like, editing or something.

-THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER

-The decisions of English language.

James is a real pedant.

He can spot, like, a mistake in, like, a teacher's slide show.

If you go to Oxford, what would you want to do after that, do you think?

-Get a job, probably.

-Doing what?

I want to be either a spy or an editor.

-I know!

-Two...

-Very different jobs.

-Very different...

-Exactly.

-..ends of the spectrum.

-One is the fallback.

But then I can't work out which one is going to be the fallback.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

-Have you ever seen Gravity?

-I have.

-Is it any good?

It's excellent.

I've heard it's basically won acclaim for its visual effects

and the performances and the special effects, the music.

-So go and see it. It's really good.

-Really?

-You've got quite high-achieving kids here, some of them.

-I have.

So, kids who are taking exams...

Do you think they might go on to have careers of some kind,

-or might go to college?

-I think we can find a career for all of them.

We just have to find the right career.

For some of them, it will be a less sociable career.

That doesn't mean they won't contribute and give their 100%.

I mean, particularly for our students,

when they're motivated by something,

they're really motivated by something.

So they usually do an incredibly thorough job.

-CHRISTOPHER:

-And I can have my own flat with a garden

and a proper toilet.

And I can take Sandy and my books and my computer.

And then I'll get a First Class Honours Degree

and then I will be a scientist.

-I can do these things.

-I hope so.

So now what are your ambitions, do you think?

Do you want to be an actor? Do you want...? What sort of thing...?

I want to be a performer. I do.

-Would you like to live on your own, for instance?

-Of course.

And my mum...

You'd love me to live on my own!

But that's the trouble. You see, it's hard for people

with learning difficulties to live...

to live independent lives.

I find it hard to kind of understand about

how to pay, when...

Basically, problems with money.

And also, you know,

I need to seriously get better at cooking if I want to live on my own.

Seriously.

You have a bit of trouble sort of focusing on tasks.

Oh, yes. I do, I do. Cos I've got all kinds of rubbish

-flowing through my mind.

-You want to talk all the time.

I want to talk about some really...some pretty dark stuff

-and it's not very...

-Sometimes you need to, you know,

if you're going to cook,

you need to focus on what you're doing. You really need to...

Talking about the kind of stuff

that most people would not dream of talking to their mum. Yeah.

But it's all about being alienated, really, at the end of the day.

How do you mean?

Oh... Um, just seeing other people

with nice, normal lives, living independently,

and getting really angry cos I'm not having that.

Seeing other people have nice, romantic relationships,

and me struggling to have one. Me, basically, not having one.

That's one thing that makes me angry. Yeah.

-CHRISTOPHER:

-I can do these things. I can.

Cos I went to London on my own.

And I found my mother.

I was brave.

-SIOBHAN:

-You were.

-And I wrote a book.

-I know. I read it.

We turned it into a play.

Yes.

Does that mean I can do anything, do you think?

-EXCITEDLY:

-Does that mean I can do anything, Siobhan?

-SOBERLY:

-Does that mean I can do anything, Siobhan?

Does that mean I can do anything?

'Christopher is so brave. He's incredibly intelligent

'and really resourceful, and highly instinctive,

'and he does all these extraordinary things,'

and he gets to the bottom of...

the lies that have been spun around him for his own protection.

And yet when he says at the end, "I can do anything, can't I,

"cos I did this?" and, "Wasn't that brilliant that I did this?"

you know that, actually, he can't do anything.

And the piece has shown you quite clearly that

he can get himself in quite serious scrapes just on one encounter

with one person, and it all goes horribly wrong.

-Is this your first play on Broadway?

-Yeah.

How does that feel?

Broadway can be savage.

There are apocryphal stories of plays closing within 48 hours,

and you just don't know, you just don't know.

But I kind of love that element of risk.

If I'm really honest, I think that is kind of exciting.

-PA SYSTEM:

-'Good evening, everybody.'

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Hello.

How's it been going?

Good. Really good.

This is the last push. Get through this, get through the gala...

-Yeah.

-..and life will be a bit more normal.

-Yeah.

-How are you guys?

-Fine.

-Welcome back.

-Thank you very much.

-Nice to see you. I'll see you soon.

Does that mean I can do anything, Siobhan?

Does that mean I can do anything, Siobhan?

Does that mean I can do anything?

-ALEX SHARP:

-This play is about a young person who is different

and who is misunderstood,

and I just want to dedicate this

to any young person out there

who feels misunderstood, or who feels different

and answer that question at the end of the play for you.

"Does that mean that I can do anything?" Yes, it does.

# Somewhere over the rainbow

# Way up high

# And the dreams that you dream of

# Once in a lullaby...by...

# Somewhere over the rainbow

# Bluebirds... #

I think one of the reasons why quite a lot of people

empathise with Christopher is because they share

one or more parts of his character,

although in a large part they're not like him at all.

And I think that's because nearly all the individual aspects

of his character, of his behaviour, his beliefs, his principles,

I have shamelessly stolen from people I know or people I've met.

He's not that different from everyone else.

I always say that choose any other human being

at random in the world

and you will have 99% of your humanity in common with them.

# ..Over the rainbow

# Bluebirds fly

# And the dreams that you dare to

# Oh, why, oh, why can't I? #

I think that Christopher potentially

could have a really exciting life.

And certainly at the end when he shows how he worked out

his maths formula,

he looks so happy that he is sharing what's so important to him.

And it's nice from the audience perspective to think,

"Well, maybe the neuro-typical people, non-autistic people,

"are going to understand now

"why things are so important to people on the autistic spectrum."

And rather than sort of mock people, which sometimes happens,

and bully people, actually, they've got something to offer in the world.

And I think that, you know, at the end

when Christopher says that he can do anything, I think that really...

I think that sums it up really well, because he could do anything.

And it's just about the people around him supporting him.

# ..Find me...

# Somewhere over the rainbow

# Bluebirds fly

# And the dreams that you dream of

# Oh, why, oh, why can't I...I...?

# Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh

# Ooh

# Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh... #