Theatre
Row Your Boat
Parkhead Library, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
four stars
FROM the toddlers’ point of view it is all about joining in and helping Daphne the Duck resolve a bath-time crisis: she has ducklings to wash and no more bubble-bath. The youngsters in the audience are well on-side. Baths without bubbles are no fun. Daphne, however, is not just a lovable, cuddly glove puppet, she has smart collaborators on hand, ones who know how to make a simple story-line into a rollicking forty minutes with cheery live music and oodles of audience participation.
Daphne’s assistants are Clare McGarry (artistic director of Grinagog Theatre) and her colleague/co-deviser Ashley Smith. Past Grinagog triumphs have included The Pokey Hat which toured in its own cunningly customised ice-cream van. Row Your Boat is also portable, albeit in the “two planks and a passion” class, with the emphasis on class. Like many venues on the current tour, Parkhead Library is an everyday space. No matter. The set-up – a painted backdrop, floor cloth and bath – is self-contained and doesn’t need theatrical effects, although the moment when the bath transforms into Daphne’s adventuring boat is as magical a surprise as you could wish for.
Row your Boat is an entertaining and resourceful mixture of wise imagination, wittily-crafted details and engaging, affable performances from McGarry and Smith – the latter in aaarr-some piratical mode as Captain Bubblebeard and goofily eccentric form as frog doctor, Marine Jean. Long after Daphne and her bubbles have packed up, small voices are still singing “row, row, row your boat...” Lo-tech, maybe, but high on effective charm. Welcome back, Grinagog.
Touring to Eastwood Park Theatre tomorrow at 11am and 1pm, The Foundry, Barrhead on Saturday at 11am and 2pm, and Platform, Easterhouse at 11am on Wednesday July 13.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here