At Dusk, by Fevered Sleep, at the Young Vic in London last week, there was a moment towards the end of the show when a surprise visitor turns up in the playing space. I wasn’t surprised by his arrival, but one of the little boys in the audience was beside himself, and performed a small jig of joy. His pleasure couldn’t help but be my pleasure, too.

We’ve reached that point in the year that I used to love when my children were little: panto and Christmas shows patrol. Rather than peel them off me, as I usually did before a night at the theatre, I’d bundle them up and take them, too.

My children are now too old for endless festive shows, and I will miss them, although I know a couple of youngsters who won’t object to being borrowed. I’ve always thought a Christmas show is better with a child by your side. As Clare Brennan wrote in her review of the Bolton Octagon’s Alice in Wonderland: “If there is any theatrical pleasure greater than watching children’s reactions to a Christmas show, I have yet to discover it.” So I’ve been a bit surprised when booking into schools performances of Christmas shows, rather than press nights, when PRs have apologised in advance for the presence of children and the fact that they might be a bit noisy. I’d be worried if they weren’t noisy. Engagement can take many forms, and treating the theatre as if it’s a church where everyone must be reverent is not my idea of fun. Particularly not at most Christmas shows.

Teenagers in the house … Girls Like That at the Unicorn

One of the things that made watching Evan Placey’s Girls Like That so interesting at the Unicorn in London the other week was experiencing it not in the presence of other adults, but with a room full of teenagers who responded completely directly – often vocally – when something surprised or shocked them. Was it distracting? No, it was exhilarating because it felt as if the play was in genuine dialogue with its audience.

“What makes sharing a performance with younger people special?” asked Brennan, before suggesting that “maybe it’s that, in the immediacy of their responses, their willingness to join in, their fidgeting distraction when confronted by condescension or ‘arty’ artificiality, they sharpen our focus.” Indeed, it’s all these things.

But I also reckon it’s because young people’s responses are so honest and unselfconscious. They don’t worry whether they are responding in the right way or not: they just react from the heart, and the vocal cords. I wish more adult audiences behaved in that way. Of course, by this time next week when I’ve a theatre full of 10-year-olds yelling “She’s behind you” in my ear, I may have changed my mind. But I doubt it.