BANK OF SCOTLAND INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S THEATRE FESTIVAL 2004.

Reviews by Timothy Ramsden

A SONATINA
Gruppe 38 at Traverse 2 To 31 May then tour to 9 June
Runs 50min No interval
Revised schedule, updated from the Festival bochure, below.

Chicken comes before egg, and spud joins in imaginative telling of folk-story for 6+.Some companies feel you need a wham-bang 'pay attention' opening for young people's work. Denmark's Gruppe 38 take the opposite approach. For a time you wonder if they'll ever get started. The blokes in the van on stage are too busy to be bothered. One turns out to be cleaning a frying-pan, using an improvised in-cab washing-bowl, the other's composing a score. And the chicken on the back seems comatose (though later proving far from unflappable).

There's only one actor trying to get going, and she has problems with props - the hen won't lay the egg, the potato's been consumed and the potato-masher hasn't been cleaned (woe-betide any audience member siding with the men who claim it's clean).

Eventually the hen co-operates with some just-in-time laying, a potato's discovered and - there being no shotgun as required - a fly-swat's called into use. Who'd have thought this would convert into a witty telling of Red Riding-Hood?

But it does, as the van-back's upended to make a little stage, with bead-curtain and footlights. The time invested in the comic set-up increases the theatrical magic.

It al lends up restoring the right order to theatre: human ingenuity by performers playing on audience imaginations. And presented to live music, often perky but suitably menacing as the potato-masher Wolf sets to work on Spud Granny and good egg Red.

Only Mother's casual sending Red through the wood, waving away danger in order to get Granny seen to quickly, hints at a social message. Otherwise, it's a glorious celebration of the power of creation. No kitchen implement will be safe once the family's seen this show.

2004-05-30 21:22:24