Published by The Stage, 29 August 2018. The show is for children aged 0–3.
Beatles for Babies by La Petita Malumaluga
Early years company La Petita Malumaluga have performed this tribute to the Fab Four all over the world and it’s not hard to see why this nearly wordless show has gone down such a storm internationally. These dates at the Boing Children’s Festival in Kent marks the British premiere.
The concept is simple: four musicians (Alba Haro on cello, Laura Marín on violin, Nil Villà on alto saxophone, Albert Vilà on percussion) playing stripped back, jazz-influenced interpretations of Beatles tunes in the round. Jordi Bello’s arrangements are charming to listen to, but what makes the show so effective for its audience of under-3s is the dynamic staging (by Vilà and Eva Vilamitjana). All four musicians are in near constant motion, with Vilamitjana providing additional vibrancy as the show’s only non-musical performer.
The all-white design (by Paula Bosch in collaboration with La Petita Malumaluga) means that the focus stays on the music and the music-makers, with the few choice bits of inventive percussion thrown in as the show progresses ensuring that there’s always something new and interesting to look at and listen to. Special mention goes to the section where Vilà conducts audience members playing dozens of colourful Boomwhacker tubes, and to the lovely suspended drums that also serve as little projector screens for Anna Carreras’s fun projections. Claudi Palomino’s lighting design is also instrumental in creating drama, helping to raise this sweet performance from mere tribute act to a real theatre experience for young audiences.
The baby girl came and visited me at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where I’ve been working this month, and we saw a few shows together. Here are the reviews I wrote about them, all originally published in Fest Magazine.
Playing at Stockbridge Church until 25 Aug, times vary
Wriggle Around the World by Recitals for Wrigglers
Wriggle Around the World is a mighty civilized way to start your day at the Fringe. Even the presence of a dozen or so under-fives—this show’s target audience, to be fair—does little to mar the enjoyment of listening to two talented musicians playing a selection of short classical works in an informal environment.
Cellist Clea Friend and violinist Louise Bevan clearly know their audience, their programme mainly comprising upbeat numbers—a Scottish reel, Brahms’s ‘Hungarian Dance No. 6’—that keep the little ones entertained. Introductions to the pieces presents the show as a journey, including travel by boat, horse and train to the various countries represented, but this narrative is loose enough for the chitchat not to feel laboured. The story of The Gingerbread Man—broken up with extracts of Bach and Bevan—offers some pleasing variety to proceedings.
Circulating photographs of the various composers doesn’t add much, given the age of the majority of the audience, but the appearance of a suitcase full of rattles and noise-makers towards the end of the concert is a hit. Recitals for Wrigglers—Wriggle Around the World is one of two shows from these performers, alongside The Lion and the Mouse—won’t be changing anyone’s world this Fringe. But that’s not what this type of show is about – Wriggle Around the World is a simple format, done well. It’s no surprise it’s doing well at the box office – so it should be.
Playing at Pleasance at EICC until 17 Aug, times vary
Balloon playtime at the end of MamaBabaMe by Starcatchers and Curious Seed
There’s as much for the parents as for the babies in MamaBabaMe. This beautiful show by Scottish dance companies Starcatchers and Curious Seed presents everyday moments in the lives of mothers and babies, Nerea Gurrutxaga and Hayley Earlam rolling, toddling, gurgling and cuddling to an atmospheric live sound track performed by cellist Robin Mason.
The set, by visual artist Yvonne Buskie, is immediately calming—an important quality for a show aimed at the under-threes and performed smack in the middle of both morning and afternoon naptimes—its colours, textures and shapes easy on the eye and pleasing to the touch.
Christine Devaney’s choreography evokes the mother-child relationship with real heart yet never falls into sentimentality. Gurrutxaga and Earlam portray both mother and baby, switching back and forth again and again in a way that suggests theories of child development that describe how babies ultimately come to mentally separate from their mothers and develop their own sense of self – or perhaps I’m reading too much into it.
Interaction with the babies in the audience is limited, which is a shame, because the little there is—including the balloon free-for-all at the end—goes down a storm. Each time the dancers reach out to us over the low cloud-like barrier that delineates their playing space, it feels like we’re being invited in to play, rather than just witness this jewel of a performance from the outside. It’s a feeling that bears repeating.
Slapstick is hard to get right, but amiable clown Tom Flanagan makes it look easy. A hapless projectionist attempting to screen a movie, he’s a hit with both grownups and little ones (the show is suitable for children age three and upwards) at this afternoon performance. So realistic is his tomfoolery, in fact, that my little girl bursts into tears every time he breaks something, falls down or bumps his head, and I spend a lot of the show reassuring her that’s he’s only pretending.
Flanagan has a lovely way with the audience, his amiable manner garnering no shortage of volunteers for the various fun bits of interaction, and a near constant rumble of chuckles that frequently breaks out into raucous applause.
A few impressive acrobatic tricks punctuate the performance but the main draw here is classic clowning with a silent movie vibe, including an inspired nod to one of Buster Keaton’s most famous stunts.
The only bit that strikes a bum note is when Flanagan romances a woman from the crowd, forced to recreate the plot of the film he’s failed to screen because the projector is belching smoke and the screen is lying in tatters on the floor. It’s all very mild-mannered but demanding physical affection from an unwilling participant feels like the wrong message to be giving young audiences, even in jest.
The other problem with this section is that it’s anticlimactic after the wonderful chaos of the preceding 40 minutes, slowing the action right down when Flanagan would do better to build to a glorious finish. Some aspects of clowning tradition are better left in the past.
Playing at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – John Hope Gateway until 26 Aug, times vary
Post-show playtime at Shhh… The Elves are Very Shy by Ipdip Theatre
Scottish early years theatre company Ipdip are back at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh with another gently interactive show for the youngest audiences. This year they’re performing inside the visitors’ centre rather than in the gardens themselves which, while a sensible move given the unpredictably of Edinburgh’s weather, loses some of the uniqueness of their previous offerings.
Shhh… The Elves Are Very Shy takes the form of a lesson in “elfology” from mild-mannered “elfologist” Dr Faye Greenwood, the aim being to put Greenwood’s titular tiny friends sufficiently at their ease so they’ll come out and play. Writer and performer Charlotte Allan is approachable and engaging as Dr Greenwood, making sure that every young audience member feels included as she cooks up sweet-smelling bubbles to tempt the elves out of their hiding place, leads some music making and supervises a stickering session. The little poems that act as introductions to each of these sections, however, are overly twee and not always clearly articulated.
The kids are having fun during all this sensory shenanigans but the show’s pièce de résistance is the eventual appearance of the elves themselves via a clever bit of video in a box made by Paul Kozinski. It’s such an effective trick that my toddler spends the walk back to the bus stop through the gardens genuinely hunting for Greenwood’s little buddies. We don’t find them – I want my money back.
Today is Sophie’s 16th birthday, so her mother is baking a cake. As Danyah Miller (who co-wrote the show with John Miller) mixes together the ingredients to bake a real-life cake before our very eyes, she’s reminded of a story she used to tell Sophie when she was little: about a family of mice celebrating a birthday of their own.
Kika’s Birthday is charming in places, and Miller is a very likeable performer, but the show lacks dramatic oomph, more story session than theatrical performance. Designer Alison Alexander’s menagerie of everyday objects transformed into animals, though often ingenious, are not used to their full potential. There’s very little attempt to bring these creatures to life in director Samantha Lane’s largely static staging – Miller’s own physicality is dynamic (credit to movement director Jennifer Jackson) but when it comes to the puppetry, she’s really just creating a series of tableaux and the story never really takes hold as a result.
Chris McDonnell’s lighting design is effective in switching between the cake-baking narrative and the story it frames, but the other signifier – a change from prose to rhyming verse and back again – feels rather twee.
We’re offered no sense of the world inhabited by the mice, either via the design, which doesn’t shift from the kitchen, or the Millers’ script, which is heavy on plot and light on atmosphere. Not enough heed has been paid to character either – it’s hard to care about protagonists that barely speak or move, even if they are cute puppet mice.
Published by The Stage, 9 April 2018. Michael Rosen’s Chocolate Cake is playing at the Polka Theatre, London, until 13 May 2018. The show is for children aged 4+. (It’s worth pointing out though that I took the baby girl (aged 19 months) and another toddler buddy (aged 22 months) along with me to a performance open to younger siblings and both of them were totally absorbed throughout.)
By blending the everyday – household routines and the journey to school – with flights of fancy – an extremely jolly Bake Off prize-giving and monsters at bath time – Glanville and Jungr create a theatrical environment that is at once familiar and fantastical to this audience of children aged four and up.
Witty writing and hummable tunes power the show along, and even though we (the adults, and probably a lot of the kids too) know exactly what’s going to happen from the word go, the denouement of Michael waking up in the middle of the night to eat an entire chocolate cake is still genuinely exciting.
Mark Houston as Michael, Todd Heppenstall as his older brother Joe and Aminita Francis as their mum are an effortlessly likeable trio, and some effective doubling swells the dramatis personae to six. Not all the music and singing is live, but there’s enough to give the piece a vibrant feel, and Jungr gives Houston, Heppenstall and Francis some lovely harmonies.
Verity Quinn’s modular set is entertaining in itself, folding and unfolding ingeniously to evoke different parts of Michael’s world, and quirky projections from Will and Joe provide a dollop of surreal humour. Lighting designer Dan Saggars really ramps up the tension when it comes to cake-eating time, making the eponymous dessert the real star of the show.
Molly Waters, Aaron Spendelow and Harrison Spiers on the set of Dear Zoo
If you have a child, you’ll have read Dear Zoo – many, many times probably. First published in 1982, this simple story of a child writing to the zoo for a pet and being sent all manner of inappropriate animals, has sold over eight million copies worldwide.
It’s a surprise therefore, given the bankability of such an endeavour, that this is the first time it’s ever been staged.
The set and costumes, by Ian Westbrook and Anne Hewitt respectively, are lifted straight out of the book, and while such a tactic succeeds in creating a familiar environment for young audiences, it’s disappointing that director Michael Gattrell has played it so safe.
The script, written by Dear Zoo’s original writer and illustrator Rod Campbell, is also faithful to the book, filling out its plot with lazily written songs for the animals and inane chitchat by its three human characters. There’s not a moment of drama to be had.
Aaron Spendelow, as Sam the Zoo Keeper, Harrison Spiers as Ben, the boy who wants a pet, and Sally, his friend, are engaging enough to get the children out of their seats for a few fun moments of gentle audience interaction, but all three performances are irritatingly one note.
It’s not their fault – Gattrell, who specialises in directing pantomimes, seems to be of the opinion that children must be talked to very loudly and very shrilly if they’re to understand anything that’s going on. Emma Longthorne, voicing the various animals, offers some much needed relief on this front.
Don’t get me wrong: lots of the two-to-six-year-olds in the audience enjoyed the silliness of this production. It’s just a shame that it has so little else going for it. Young audiences deserve better.
Emma Longthorne, Aaron Spendelow and Harrison Spiers and Molly Waters on the set of Dear Zoo
The baby girl at Family Sounds at the Wigmore Hall
The Family Sounds workshop has already begun by the time the baby girl and I arrive (late) at the Wigmore Hall, and the foyer is full of enticing sounds: lilting song, drum beats emanating from a suitcase, sliding notes from a violin, a flute and a cello. Part of the extensive programme of family events at the hall, the workshop is aimed at under-5s.
The baby girl gets a name badge, we draw close to the magic suitcase and her name is pulled into the song. Workshop leader Esther Sheridan explains that we’ll be going on a journey together, collecting sounds in the suitcase to create a new piece of music. She then leads us all downstairs to the hall’s Bechstein Room, where the floor is littered with percussion instruments waiting for players.
The kids get stuck in with the shakers while the musicians improvise around a piece specially written by the Wigmore’s composer-in-residence Helen Grime. It’s wonderful to be able to listen to multi-instrumental music in the round, and Sheridan and the other workshop leaders hit the right balance in terms of atmosphere as they lead musicians and children into silence and sound and back again. The mood is informal, so everyone feels relaxed, but it’s not a free-for-all – we know where our focus is expected to be.
The next phase of the workshop, in which the group moves to different areas in the room to experiment with sounds of the forest, city and space, is less successful. The music is excellent – the musicians playing in unusual ways to create otherworldly and unexpected noises – but the interactive element feels undercooked. While the older and more independent children have a ball suggesting sounds to take with us on our journey, the little ones are sometimes left behind. As a result, the session begins to drag – two hours is a long time to ask babies and toddlers to pay attention.
That said, when the musicians and workshop leaders are engaging with the children one-on-one (shout out to Gawain Hewitt and his musical plant), and Grime’s evocative music is filling the space, this workshop is a delight. Venues like this one can feel rather forbidding; by throwing open the doors to families, the Wigmore Hall is doing important work in democratising classical music and developing the audiences of the future. It’s good to see.
Every aspect of the theatre experience has been carefully considered in Hush-A-Bye, a gently interactive show for children aged three to five (there’s a relaxed version too, and one for babies and toddlers) from veteran company Oily Cart. In director Anna Newell’s capable hands, this ‘woodland wonderland’ is not just a place of fun but of learning and comfort too.
Sitting at a sort of bar, looking into Jens Cole’s bright treetop set, their grownups behind them, the children are each invited to build a nest for some hatching baby birds. It’s a sensory activity, and a fun one at that, but it’s also a neat way of getting the children comfortable in the space and invested in the story. The pace here, as throughout, is leisurely enough that no one is left behind, and there’s plenty of time for the cast to engage with their young patrons one-on-one.
Cole’s design really shines as writer and Oily Cart artistic director Tim Webb’s simple plot – the arrival of some unexpected weather and an even more unexpected visitor – takes off, and lighting designer Jack Knowles deserves a particular nod for the magical moment when the rain starts to fall.
Katherine Grey and Griff Fender as Grandma and Grandpa Bird are reassuringly familiar and grandparental, despite their colourful birdy getups, while participatory stage manager Deanne Jones as Hoppity is childlike enough to identify with. Kadialy Kouyate’s beautiful kora playing and singing provides atmospheric underscoring before bursting into life for several fun song and dance numbers. I didn’t want any of it to end.
Telling a story through contemporary circus is a feat attempted by many, but achieved by regrettably few. With The Ramshackle House, Upswing Theatre make it look easy, painting a picture of family life that is emotionally resonant yet sufficiently silly to hold the attention of younger audience members.
Delia Ceruti and Renato Dias begin the show performing alone – she, defying gravity on a tangle of ropes; he, clowning around on the perilously sloping roof of the eponymous abode. They soon come together, to tumble, balance and twist their way into love. It’s not long before a child arrives in their lives, a suitably excitable Matthew Smith, making their family complete.
The circus itself, devised by the company and directed by Upswing artistic director Vicki Amedume, is unshowy, made to serve the narrative thrust of the show, rather than the other way around. Keeping things contained in this way means that there’s room for the handful of moments of proper spectacle to really breathe, as when Dias and Ceruti teeter, impossibly, on a plank of wood balanced on the rung of a ladder.
An accomplished original score by James Atherton – at times plaintive, at times funky – keeps the show motoring along, while Daniella Beattie’s lighting design bathes Becky Minto’s set in a series of beautiful coloured glows, eliciting oohs and aahs at each scene change.
There’s a magic to the fact that all this takes place up on the roof, a harvest moon shining overhead. It’s like normal life – laundry, chairs, books and lampshades all make an appearance – but transported into a different dimension, one where disagreements are solved with handstands and parents can be carried by their children.
Tutti Frutti Productions begins its adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s story of a baby bird hatched into the wrong nest using puppetry, then switching into live action as the tale takes off.
It’s a good call on Tutti Frutti artistic director Wendy Harris’s part, enabling the company to set the scene for a young audience before adopting a less literal dressing-up box aesthetic that makes for a very stylish piece of children’s theatre.
Catherine Chapman’s inventive design uses sunglasses to suggest beaks, woolly jumpers as feathers, and paper flags to stand in for snow, leaving plenty of room for Mike Redley’s lighting and Tayo Akinbode’s score to help conjure up the urban park where our story takes place.
Danny Childs does an excellent line in gangly awkwardness as the Ugly Duckling, wide-eyed in his dealings with Daniel Naddafy’s Fluffy, the mean older brother who nudges him from the nest.
Also playing some of the characters that Ugly encounters in the wilds of the park gives Naddafy a chance to have fun with different accents and physicalities. Maeve Leahy, meanwhile, keeps the show grounded with her tender portrayal of the mother duck, and reveals a fine singing voice too – it’s a shame that after her sweet song there’s little live music to be heard, replaced by recorded music that jars in both its tone and volume.
Emma Reeves’s script steers clear of excessive tweeness. The message of ‘it’s what you do that matters, not what you look like’ is hardly revelatory but, buffered by a lot of genuinely funny physical comedy and a surprisingly moving piece of dance (props to movement director Holly Irving), Tutti Frutti more than gets away with it.
The first time I went to the Ministry of Sound – at the tender age of 16 – someone threw up on my shoes in the queue. On this most recent visit, to check out indoor family festival Rave-A-Roo, the worst that happened was a leaky nappy. I think you could call that progress.
Launched in early 2016, Rave-A-Roo is a brilliant concept: an opportunity for children to dance, play and generally run wild in an environment so stimulating that it takes them all weekend to wind down again, while their parents drink overpriced prosecco and indulge in nostalgia for their clubbing days.
The baby girl isn’t really Rave-A-Roo’s target audience, but babies are welcome, and there are enough exciting things to look at (giant disco ball, anyone?) and different places to sit to make this little adventure worth the trouble.
Clouds of bubbles waft over us as I park the pushchair in an undercover area in the venue’s courtyard, a suitably enthusiastic DJ Cuddles (I’m desperate to know if he uses this stage name for adult gigs too) playing pop tunes in front of tables covered with jewellery-making paraphernalia.
Worried about the volume levels, I bring the baby girl’s ear defenders, but they end up staying in my bag. The main room – headlined by none other than everyone’s favourite ovine film star Shaun the Sheep – would be too loud to go without ear protection for longer than a few minutes, but the baby girl isn’t interested in being in there anyway. Crawling is all she wants to do right now, and the main room isn’t the place for it, so despite the temptation of a flock of inflatable ducks, we leave it to the bigger kids.
We spend most of our time in the Funky Soft Play Room, carving out a corner for ourselves in the midst of dozens of wired toddlers. The soft play isn’t quite as soft as it should be – the only cushioning on the floor of the inflatable that holds the soft play equipment is a few rag rugs – and there’s no one in authority keeping the rowdier children from going rogue. The small pile of baby toys in the corner is welcome, but positioned in such a way that it feels like we’re in constant danger of being stepped on.
The other place we hang out is Chill-A-Roo, aka the Ministry’s VIP area, which overlooks the main bar on one side and the biggest club room on the other. No concessions to the family crowd here apart from a barista serving proper coffees, but the baby girl is happy enough sitting on a banquette and hitting her cup against the table while I drink a hot chocolate.
At £12.10 for early bird tickets (going up to an eye-watering £25 on the door) for adults and children over the age of 18 months, Rave-A-Roo isn’t cheap, but the super friendly vibe, plus nice touches like nappy change supplies in the loos, swings it for me. The baby girl will be too little to really appreciate it for a while yet, but if Rave-A-Roo is still running in two or three years’ time, you can find us in da club.
The baby girl larging it in the Funky Soft Play Room at Rave-A-Roo at Ministry of Sound.
