Reviewing children’s shows can feel a little ridiculous; after all, I’m not the target audience. Marching off to see one in the Edinburgh drizzle at ten thirty in the morning with the hang over from hell can make one question one’s sanity (note to self, stop drinking in Edinburgh). On this occasion the trip was well and truly justified.
This is the first production for Single Leaf and the first play from writer Ben Harrison. Harrison’s script is an abridged and clever updating of Lewis Carroll’s extraordinary books Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. We follow Miriam (Sara Marie Bradley) as she falls asleep reading the book in her bedroom and the characters come to life. All the favourites are here – a superb and energised Mad Hatter (Thomas Coombes), a cute Dormouse (Lorna Shaw) and playful White Rabbit, played brilliantly by black actor Mynyahill Kifle -Giorgis, insisting on being called Mr W Rabbit. As Miriam desperately tries to recover her book in a land where books are banned so she can get home the pace simply zips along and by the time we meet Jo Kennedy’s camp Queen of Hearts and ingenious Humpty Dumpty the kids in the audience (come of them as young a three by the looks of it) are completely hooked.
Director Jessica Swale stages imaginatively and comically, and there are very few of those excruciating panto “she’s behind you” moments. The songs are catchy and involve the audience. I could make minor carps. I think the first half is more fun than the second, when the energy of the Mad Hatter is mostly missing. Also, it seemed to peter out a bit as an adventure story – the tension of “will she, won’t she get home’ not really building.
But as I looked round at the faces of the kids, totally enraptured, totally spellbound, totally believing, I realised how much bollocks that is. Imagine, imagine, imagine goes the mantra of the show. And these young performers have certainly done that, and in the process transport kids to a world they truly believe in.
I left feeling sad. I can’t do that any more. I sit there assessing the lighting and the costumes and the diction and the…….
Where’s the pub?
[Robin T. Barton]
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