THE GENIE AND THE MEANIE. To 16 July.
Scarborough
THE GENIE AND THE MEANIE
by Lee Threadgold
Stephen Joseph Theatre To 16 July 2005
Sat 10.30am
Runs c 25min No interval
TICKETS: 01723 370541
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 June
Saturday morning serial of delight.Saturday mornings' Tiny Time Tales' (for under-6s) have come some way at the Stephen Joseph, from an actor sitting in an armchair reading to the young, to full-fledged theatre serials the kind of Saturday morning sagas once seen in cinemas, and now found on TV. Director/puppetman Lee Threadgold shares the summer with Alan Ayckbourn, whose serial The Girl Who Lost Her Voice is due to start late July.
Threadgold's Arabian mornings take as their frame a sultan transformed into a scarab-beetle (call him cockroach at your peril) then set adrift with a genie to help out 9 needy nomads, thereby proving his worth to return to human form. Each week a member of the Stephen Joseph's repertory company becomes an aforesaid needy nomad to be assisted by the Threadgold-voiced puppets.
Episode 7 of this picaresque tale involved Terence Booth's indecisive sea-captain. He too had been turned adrift, fated never to end his travels for eating one of the ocean's forbidden red fish (political messages came to mind: don't swallow communism, soon to be dismissed).
It's delightful to see Booth, more usually given splenetic characters, as in Ayckbourn's current Improbably Fiction, take on such a role. Advice given by scarab and genie as they bob along beside the boat has to be mediated through the audience. There are also opportunities to create physical mnemonics for various navigational directions.
Such a series can threaten to make chance visitors feel excluded; questions referring back to earlier episodes ran the risk. But the adventure itself is delightfully self-contained. It's some way into the story of Booth's seafarer before the regulars arrive, allowing everyone to latch on to the story from the new character's viewpoint.
This mix of story, comedy and friendly participation is an excellent way for young people to enjoy theatre, and even get the theatregoing habit. Presumably Scarborough regulars may miss episodes when they're away on holiday; there again, they might start asking that other resorts try something at least half as imaginative and engaging as their home town's Tiny Times Tales.
2005-07-03 13:01:00