Stage play is a real feather in the cap

Downton Drama Company has more modest ambitions, but when it premieres its own adaptation of the novel next week, Nicky will be in the audience, with her husband and two of her three children, to see how it turns out.

The writer, who lives in Brighton, was approached by Downton actress Jane Seden and her husband, Peter, last year with a request to allow Peter to adapt Feather Boy as a stage play, to be produced in the village using a cast drawn from both ends of the age spectrum.

"I was very attracted by a community project that would really involve both young people and 'elders' - that's what my book is partly about, those relationships and what we miss by not fostering them any more," says Nicky.

"What would please me most would be that the central core of the work remains (the bit that makes you laugh and cry) but that the adaptation has also brought something new to the work - and also that everyone had fun working on it!"

The story concerns Robert, nicknamed Norbert by his classmates, who dreams of flying to escape the realities of school bullying and an unhappy home life after his parents' divorce.

Taking part in a community project with the elderly residents of a rest home, Robert is chosen to partner cantankerous old Edith Sorrell.

She demands he explore Chance House, a derelict property close by.

As he exposes the tragic events that took place in its past and its links with Mrs Sorrell and her estranged husband, Ernest, he also confronts his own fears and the bullies that torment him.

Nicky says: "I didn't set out to write a book about bullying.

"I think it's a book about being true to yourself, finding out who you are and believing in yourself.

"It's also about loss: Robert has lost his father, Edith her son and Ernest his wife."

Winner of the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award, the story has struck a chord with hundreds of children who have identified with its themes.

"I get wonderful and touching letters about how kids feel they are Norbert and remarks about how the book is 'very sad and very free'," says Nicky.

"I love that word 'free'. No adult would use it like that."

Nicky had written four adult books before she began work on Feather Boy, after her son Roland, 11 years old at the time, asked her to write something for younger people.

The inspiration for the story came on a walk home from the sea.

"I passed a derelict house," says Nicky.

"It was pretty much as I describe it in the book - boarded-up with steel mesh - but I knew I had to go in.

"The sink was ripped away, there were mad and dangling wires, the floor was littered with paper and smashed brick and the far door, into the main body of the house, was closed. It would have been really smart to turn back, but I just had to have a peep through that door... the beautiful Victorian tile hall beyond was sledgehammered, every one of the thousand blue, yellow and terracotta tiles was smashed.

"I went up the stairs - I kept my back to the wall so I could see anyone coming.

"I've never been so frightened in my life.

"My heart was hammering in my chest but I went on through and climbed the last 12 steps."

At the top, she found an empty room and another with a shut door which, she says, like Robert, she felt impelled to open.

"And in there was . . . nothing - nothing at all but duck wallpaper and a broken window pane.

"And that's when it happened the 'writer's moment', if you like.

"I thought: I can't have been this scared for nothing, so I started the 'what ifs'."

In Downton, life has also imitated art for the project.

One of the first things director Jane Seden did at the start of rehearsals was take the youngsters from her cast - about a dozen 11 to 13 year olds - up to Woodfalls Care, a residential home for the elderly.

"It was a very rewarding visit," says Jane.

"Exactly what happens in the play and in the book happened.

"We all stood and froze, feeling very awkward but, by the end, it was very friendly, and all sorts of stories and revelations were coming out."

And there have been other parallels, too.

Says Nicky: "Peter e-mailed to say they'd all been down to the beach to get feathers for Edith's coat of feathers.

"Well, I did that, too - I went to Brighton beach and collected feathers an d washed them and blew them dry with a hairdryer and tried to sew them - just to see if it was possible.

"So it was thrilling to imagine the Downton team doing that, too."

Auditions for the 'elders' yielded a formidable array of senior citizens, including Lorna Bramwell-Davies who, before the war, once trod the boards of the Old Vic Theatre in its glory days with Lilian Baylis.

Wendy Cronan, a stalwart of the Godshill Players, and 11-year-old Louis Rhoades, who lives in Downton, take the roles of Edith and Robert, with David Shaw as the bully, Niker, and Isabella Penny as Kate.

Now in his 70s, Bob Cameron steps back into the spotlight to play Edith's husband - his last appearance on stage was as a student at 19.

Original music for the production is by Alan Bond and the show is designed by Sarah Jane Ash.

Nicky herself has more plans for Feather Boy - a musical version is in the pipeline, on which she is collaborating with producer Peter Tabern, composer Debbie Wiseman and lyricist Don Black.

She says: "It incredibly exciting from someone who normally writes alone with her word-processor to come out to play with some people who talk about structure over a good lunch and four large classes of wine."

Feather Boy, performed by Downton Drama Company, is on from April 7-9 at Downton Memorial Hall, starting at 7.30pm (2.30pm matinee on Saturday). Tickets, at £6 for adults and £4 concessions, are obtainable at Giles Vye & Sons in the village. Proceeds will go to Cancer Research UK.