WEATHER KITCHEN. To 3 July.
Tour
WEATHER KITCHEN
by Chris Speyer Music by Ieun Goch ab Einion
Monster Productions Tour to 3 July 2004
Runs 1hr 5min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 June at Chester Gateway Studio
Colourful fun with a gently touching story attached.They came from Newcastle-upon-Tyne - where people know about weather. Monster Productions now tour the sort of show for under 7s that the same personnel used to produce as Christmas shows at Newcastle Playhouse's Gulbenkian Studio.
The format's familiar - it echoes many a play, especially a Feydeau or Pinero farce. Events start at home, travel to some fantastic location where strange things happen, before landing the central young character safe home again.
This piece, among the most successful of those I've seen, is also among the shortest, and has least participation for the audience. It does have a colourful story and setting, something near a villain in the Weather Cook's relative Elminio (names are phonetically spelled as no cast list's available) who uses the main man's vacation to stir up a spell of bad weather.
The basic idea, of weather being cooked up, is ingenious, and apt in an age when cookery programmes have a raging TV popularity. It allows fun with ingredients (less exploited for audience involvement than might have been expected) and, thanks to a 'weather window' which opens on to various seasonal scenes, creates a satisfying sense of something being produced.
And there are other ideas which have a visual logic, like the umbrellas which whisk people off to intended locations.
Then there are the inevitable Monster furry puppets - a chorusing glove sheep, duck and armadillo, which recurs as a live actor. This produces the only untied end in the piece. Poor armadillo's been displaced in our heroine Pepita's affections, and never seems to recover her undeserved status loss. A sad thought in an otherwise happy, colourful show.
Music, as always, plays an important role, with tunes that are simple enough without being simplistic. There's also a neatly-synchronised metallic rhythm section early on, as Pepita and dad use various pans to stem their leaking roof.
Chris Speyer clearly knows how to pace these shows, and he has a quartet of good performers, with an especially fine Pepita, combining strength and good sense with concern and feeling for others. Her friendly approach to the audience helps gain a response and interest in her adventures. Worth an outing, whatever the weather.
2004-06-07 18:08:38