A brilliant radio interview stopped me in my tracks recently and I want to share what caught my attention and what lessons it can teach all communicators. On 11 July Dr Helen Charman, Director of the London-based Young V&A (formerly the Museum of Childhood) came onto BBC Radio 4 a few minutes before the end of the Today programme. You’ll be able to listen back here for the next two weeks.
She was being interviewed to mark the Young V&A winning the Arts Fund Museum of the Year Award, which comes with an award of £120.000. Helen said they’ll invest it in promoting creative learning opportunities for their youngest audiences.
The children had challenged them to create “the most joyful museum in the world” and they clearly have delivered, with 730.000 visitors crossing their doors over the last year. My ears pricked up at the word ‘joyful’. It’s such an unexpected word in association with a museum, or in fact with any of the topics normally covered by the Today daily news schedule.
“Young V&A”, Helen enthused, “is a light filled, optimistic museum, full of colour, pattern, it’s a place for children to learn in their family environment, with their siblings, it’s a place for doing.” She went on to describe their Mini Museum ( a sensory environment for the youngest, curated around sound, colour, texture) and the “astonishingly exuberant experiences of children as they visit: they cartwheel over the entrance, they come in with their scooters, some break-dance their way in!”.
Yes, that sounds rather joyful, doesn’t it, especially after the dreary isolation these same kids will have experienced in the Covid years. It sounds indeed a bit like magic.
Helen's messaging was faultless: she got a lot of good points across, dutifully name-checked the people she needed to thank, described the challenges involved in getting here and their plans for the future, sounding grateful and excited in equal measure. But it was more than that.
You see, the thing is, I don’t like children. I love young people and tolerate pretty much every other age group but children, alas, leave me indifferent. I will purposefully avoid ‘family’ oriented attractions, restaurants and venues so I don’t have to deal with the adorable little scoundrels and their sounds, looks and textures (particularly at the dinner table, this).
Yet this interview, about the recent triumph of a museum that until that morning I would have avoided like the plague, left me dizzy with curiosity and wonder. I, too, wanted to break-dance into the building, immerse myself in the sensory experience for the under twos, and playfully learn fun stuff until I could feel 12 all over again.
It’s not enough to tell people things, however clearly, concisely and authoritatively. The truly skilled media operator will be able to make them feel something too. She will move her audience, even just a little, from one emotional state to another. Those are the interviews that stand out and stick in your brains, sometimes painfully when they relate to conflict, war and loss, at other times bringing a smile of pure joy to your lips.
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