Right from the start, there's's a really good feel to this BalletLORENT dance piece for the under-fives.
Instead of having tinies fidgeting with counter-productive impatience while waiting for the show to begin, the fun is to be had as soon as you enter the space.
John (Jon Beney) is a genial, sharing sort so it’s a case of “my room is your room” so little ones are free to play with John and his toys until he realises that – it being the day for moving house – he’s meant to be packing all his stuff away. By then, everyone’s tuned into John as a character and ready to go with him... and if that doesn’t quite mean squirming through walls or disappearing into boxes, it does mean that kids who want to get up close to the magical-fantasy figures who live under the floor can do just that.
And who wouldn’t want to get close to these lissome, frolicsome dancers in their fabulously whimsical costumes. Wowser-ish, towser-ish Gruffy (Gavin Coward), slinky-flexible Mimic (Philippa White) and the dainty, shy Fawn (Gwen Berwick) make Liv Lorent’s choreographic shifts between frisky playfulness, buoyant camraderie and magical discovery seem easy, despite it being doubly demanding in terms of acting skills as well as technique.
Everything, from the design, to the lighting, the music and the puppets,is caringly thought through. Utterly beguiling.
HHHH
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