HANDA'S HEN To 5 July.

London.

HANDA’S HEN
based on the book by Eileen Browne.

Little Angel Theatre 14 Dagmar Passage N1 2DN To 5 July.
Wed-Sun 10am, 11.200am, 1.30pm.
Runs 45min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7226 1787.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 June.

Little Angel presents big delight.
There’s a lot packed into this well-laid theatre piece, adapted from Eileen Browne’s book – and not only for the show’s 2-5 audiences. There’s a chance to learn to count to ten, in English and Swahili, and to meet a varied range of wildlife, which attaches itself (sometimes literally) to Handa and her friend Akeyo as they search for missing hen Mondi.

Rightly for its young audiences, the search for Mondi is a frame; inside it each event is a story in itself. As two butterflies, three mice and four lizards lead into a reverse-order Twelve Days of Christmas of small-scale wildlife, creatures – including a set of musical frogs – emerge in turn, sharing the stage with the two performers, fluttering, running or feeding around the audience.

Handa keeps asking about Mondi, which reminds us about the hen as attention’s taken by the finely-crafted, colourful creatures that range from lizards crawling up the characters’ backs and crickets on their fingernails to the stream of frogs and carousels of flying birds

All find a place in Handa’s yard while the two girls go about their work, until the number ten brings the explanation for Mondi’s disappearance, when she returns at the head of a flotilla of newborn chicks.

Repeating the counting of numbers as they increase, alternating the two languages, washing and hanging materials, enjoying some dancing and encouraging the young people to clap and tap rhythms, performers Charlyne Francis as a playful Handa, and Anna-Maria Nabirye as her even more playful friend, give a friendly energy to Marleen Vermeulen’s production.

Vermeulen pitches the pace and tone aptly, letting each event in Handa and Akeyo’s life breathe, allowing moments of comedy (people loved finding the lizards on the characters’ backs, and the gliding troupe of songster frogs) and visual beauty. A playful humour and good-humoured trickery between the friends co-exists with their mutual trust and evident happiness as childhood friends.

This colourful show gives design and form to a natural joy and interest in the world around, encouraging trust and developing a delight in discovery. With a bit of bilingual arithmetic thrown in.

Handa: Charlyne Francis.
Akeyo: Anna-Marie Nabirye.

Director: Marleen Vermeulen.
Designers: Lyndie Wright, Sarah Wright.
Lighting: David Duffy.
Musical Director/Vocal coach: Anna Samant.

2009-06-30 00:02:36