Category Archives: Venues

+3 Review: [title of show] (C Cubed: 4-29 Aug: 21.20: 1hr 30mins)

Posted in 3*, C Venues, EdFestivals 2016, Musical Theatre by

“The company’s voices blend beautifully to create some lovely moments”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars

I always get excited when a new and ambitious theatre company decides to put its own spin on a show that only received limited success its first time around, in order to try and find that winning formula. In this case, Cobbles and Rhyme attempt to give a very minimalist makeover to [title of show], which, though enjoyable, unfortunately ends up languishing in musical theatre mediocrity.

[title of show] is by nature the anti-musical – intentionally flying in the face of the fourth wall and big production values, using just a keyboard, a bare stage, four actors and and four chairs. This makes it perfect for translating to Fringe venues, and with some clever staging Cobbles and Rhyme effectively create sympathetic intimacy and a stripped back feel that really suits the show’s themes.

However, beyond this it is a shame to see that some of the basic flaws in the musical itself were not addressed, making it at times painfully obvious exactly why the show wasn’t a huge hit on Broadway. Granted, this is probably more down to terms within the performance rights than the company’s ability, but I can only critique based on what I see.

It takes the best part of 25 minutes and six songs to get past the “Let’s write a musical/I don’t know what to write” stage, and throughout the first half of the performance I felt like I learned next to nothing about the personalities of each character. It is only towards the end in Awkward Photo Shoot when tensions start to emerge and priorities conflict that we really discover their mettle, and it’s a shame this occurs so late. This is a show that just needs to get to the meat faster and stop being quite so self-indulgent and self-important.

Musically, it’s ok – there aren’t really any standout numbers, though closing tune Nine People’s Favorite Thing is quite hummable as you exit the auditorium. Complex harmonies are well delivered throughout and the company’s voices blend beautifully to create some lovely moments. The cast certainly give it their all, even though for me it’s the supporting characters of Heidi (Heidi Parsons) and Susan (Charlie Walker) who outshine their male counterparts with stunning vocals and gripping stage presence.

Overall it’s nice, it’s funny and it’s well sung, but I think it lacks that killer punch to have a really big impact at the Fringe.

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

—

Reviewer: Steve Griffin (Seen 10 August)

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

+3 Review: Tony Roberts – Card Magic (Assembly Roxy, Aug 5-28 : 21.30 : 1hr)

Posted in 4*, Assembly Roxy, Cabaret, EdFestivals 2016, Rated: Outstanding by

https://newimages.bwwstatic.com/columnpic7/iconsquaretonyroberts_0244_photobysteveullathorne.jpeg

“Absurdly clever card trickery”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars Outstanding

I’ve never been very good at card tricks. As someone for whom maths lessons loomed like Banquo at the feast, knowing the number work at play in even the simplest sleight veered me sharply away. So when presented with someone who can do it with skill, I’m naturally impressed; and when presented with Tony Roberts, I was delighted.

Though the audience I saw him in was small, I feel this made no difference: Roberts is an expert at playing a crowd as if it was a one on one conversation, turning what could have been a small show in the Roxy downstairs into a warm, intimate and deeply interesting conclave. Hosted by the titular lauded businessman-cum-acclaimed street performer, ‘Card Magic’ (as Roberts so quickly and happily points out) is what it says on the tin – though perhaps without fully advertising the sheer quality of the product inside. And what that exactly is, much like the man himself, is hard to describe. Part comedy show, part biography and with a heaped helping of absurdly clever card trickery, this was a performance which never failed to intrigue and entertain.

This show’s greatest asset (quite fittingly) is Roberts himself. Deeply charismatic from the moment he opens his mouth, he fails to fall into the trap of braggadociousness which plagues so many contemporary street magicians. It’s like hanging out with an Australian uncle down the pub, if that very same uncle had spent a few years trapped in a Johnny Ace Palmer show. It’s clear from the get-go exactly how Roberts can draw crowds on a busy street – not only his wit, but his genuineness and warmth.

But, of course, being an ace with his suits doesn’t hurt either – and Roberts is clearly one of the best. Even with repeat viewings, his tricks would boggle the mind. Shaking his hand at the end of the show (as he humbly asks of every audience member), it’s almost surreal to recall the sheer dexterousness with which his fingers move. Although some of the tricks flowed a little too subtly on from his storytelling (though with shuffling skills like his, it’s difficult to tell when the real show’s starting), their denouement is always satisfying, whether you know you’re there at first or not.

This is the kind of show that makes children wish to grow up to be magicians, and adults wish they’d had the chance. But, as Roberts own story proves, it’s never too late to start seeing the magic – and I can think of no better show to pull back the curtain.

outstanding

StarStarStarStar

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Reviewer: Jacob Close (Seen 7 August)

Visit the Assembly Roxy archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

+3 Review: Nuclear Family (Assembly Roxy: 3 – 29 Aug. 1715. 1h)

Posted in 2*, Assembly Roxy, EdFestivals 2016, Rated: Unrated, Theatre by
Image. Sunday's Child & Fever Dream Theatre.

Image. Sunday’s Child & Fever Dream Theatre.

” .. a drama of a hopeless, unstable, situation”

Editorial Rating:  2 Stars

Torness nuclear power station is 30kms from Edinburgh, strikingly visible from the A1 and from the main line. The MailOnline did a photo feature on it in January last year. A close-up on one of the panels in the Control Room shows the operating switches to Boilers A to D. Understandably, there’s ‘Start Up’, ‘Drain and Warm-Up’, and – critically – ‘Dump’; which is what Ellen, who’s a technician at a nuclear site, has just done to Phil. He takes it very, very badly.

This then is your chance to get up-close and personal with nuclear safety. You play your part in an examination of how Phil, the jilted boyfriend, and a couple of his drunk mates got into the Central Control Room of a nuclear power station and caused a disaster. It’s your job to review the evidence of how it was allowed to happen and to play ‘What Would You Do / What Should They Have Done?’ The results are to be included in the final ‘Prescott’ report. (There is no connection BTW with the former Deputy Prime Minister or indeed, I trust, with any incident at a nuclear installation). As a core idea, it has a lot going for it; but what of its processes?

The audience of eight to ten – it might stretch to 14 or so – sits in a semi-circle. In front of us two actors act out the CCTV footage of the Security desk from that terrible evening. Ellen (Eva O’Connor) is on duty with her brother Joe (Adam Devereux), who is on a verbal warning for telling site managers what they don’t want to hear. This sequence is interrupted on five occasions for  audience participants to look at further evidence: personnel records, transcripts, and the like. A facilitator officiates and calls Time when a decision has to be reached: for example, sound the alarm now or wait? There is a show of hands to determine what happens next.

The acting was by far and away the best part, creating tension even when the plot approached meltdown. However, for me, the ‘interactive’ theatre was a nightmare. I had my senior doubts from the start when the bumbling distribution of iPods did not convince me that this was an official inquiry and then the request for a rapporteur helper was immediately taken up by a man to my right festooned with venue participant lanyards. He started whispering broken instructions on how to open the nano which I tried to follow but I had to give up on the looped audio files. My neighbour to the left seemed to be ‘on task’ and having an engaged conversation but all this activity seemed completely superfluous. It didn’t help, of course, that I was outside the discussions that were taking place. I just wanted to hear more from Joe and Ellen, whose acting was reaching critical levels, rather than wait for the next predictable outcome. Even then it was pretty obvious that whatever decision was reached, at whichever improbable juncture, it would make no difference. When the votes were taken there was no time to really examine the decisions reached. As an immersive simulation it wasn’t working; as a drama of a hopeless, unstable, situation, I liked its fallout.

Star (blue)Star (blue)

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 7 August)

Visit the Assembly Roxy  archive.

+3 Review: Growing Pains (Underbelly, Cowgate: 5-28 Aug: 16.30: 1hr)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals 2016, Musical Theatre, Theatre, Underbelly by

“Oozes a quality that is rare and valuable”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars

There’s a lovely tradition at the Fringe whereby all companies performing at a certain venue are permitted “standby” tickets to other shows at that venue: once all paying ticket holders have been admitted, any empty seats are then up for grabs – if there are any. For this performance Underbelly companies didn’t just fill the few empty seats: staff were frantically laying out two extra rows at the back to cope with a level of demand I’ve never seen before. Within about 10 seconds of the performance starting, I could understand the hype.

As is so achingly trendy at the moment, Growing Pains is written like a performance poem, with rhyme and rhythm, ridiculously clever wordplay, and a lot of witticism. It’s brutal, honest and unflinching in its portrayal of a young man growing up on an estate in Salford and wanting to make it as an actor. Energy is red raw from the get go and you can tell this is going to be an intense and emotional hour.

Central character Tom introduces his friends, portraying each with clear physicality and accent, and we get to laugh at their banter and endeavours to get served at the local pub while underage. Later on we see those same friends grown-up, stuck in a rut and stifled in small-town mentality that Tom so desperately longs to break away from.

Tom Gill gives absolutely everything in this production – from emotive, heart-wrenching pleas to his dad, amusing turns as his Caribbean neighbour and a posture-perfect well-heeled yuppie, to more puns on London tube stations than you can count and a stripped back and haunting break-up scene with an ex-girlfriend: it really is a one man tour-de-force. For me, it’s 2016’s Johnny Bevan.

Oh, and it’s also a musical. With poetic lyricism that effortlessly floats in and out of song it only seems right to blend the two, and it just works. Not in a corny, musical theatre I’m-just-going-to-burst-into-song kind of way, but in a genuine expression of music being the only way for Tom to be able to communicate what’s going on in his head. It’s funny. moving, and incredibly well performed.

However, it’s not perfect – there are several odd little skips, jumps and glossings over within the narrative that could be made clearer or more cleverly interwoven without the need to go to a blackout – but everything about it oozes a quality that is rare and valuable and definitely worth buying a ticket to. Just ask anyone else doing a show at Underbelly.

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

—

Reviewer: Steve Griffin (Seen 8 August)

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

+3 Review: Jane Eyre: An Autobiography (Assembly Roxy: 4 – 29 Aug. 1115. 1h30m)

Posted in 3*, Assembly Roxy, EdFestivals 2016, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by
Image. Dyad Productions.

Image. Dyad Productions.

“Rebecca Vaughn’s solo work is outstanding.”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars Outstanding

” ‘… and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see …’  me, plain and plain-spoken Jane Eyre, on stage for ninety minutes as I tell you the story of my life.”

We have an autobiographical telling, dramatic and full of character, with nothing of substance left out and everything of significance retained. From the window seat in the breakfast room, aged 10, to the parlour of Ferndean Manor, some nine years later where the blind Mr Rochester – he of the ‘brow of rock’ – reclaims his darling Jane. Writer Elton Townend Jones calls his work ‘an impressionistic adaptation’ of Charlotte Bronte’s book. Well, fair enough, along with the charged immediacy of the scene(s) comes the solid narrative, fused and monumental.

Performer Rebecca Vaughan is definitely impressive. She is Jane, of course, but she is also everyone else – except the source of crazed laughter from the attic. There is, inevitably, a cartoon Mr Brocklehurst, who might as well be the grim progenitor of today’s (English) free schools. Mr Rivers, impossible for the irreligious to figure, is left pallid and decent. Mr Rochester is gruff and always amused by Jane’s frank determinations. As Jane, Vaughan is upright and indomitable, which makes her excitement and frailty when it comes to the love story just a bit tricky. However, if romance is your thing, then Jane’s virtuous path to happiness is surely realised.

What makes the novel probably undoes its efficient telling. Jane ‘hadn’t intended to love [Rochester]’ but does and she certainly never expected riches but she gets them. That, to use Bronte’s unlikely word, is a ‘stunner’. The stage-succinct explanation of her 20K inheritance does advance a parallel narrative that gives Jane an easy living that is more assured than the trials and anxieties of any self-respecting literary heroine should be. I wondered, listening hard, whether her assessment of Position, Fortune, & Age in the marriage stakes – our century’s life-style choices – was beginning to count for more than love, which (I concede) is rather uncharitable.

Dyad Productions have worked the text of Jane Eyre to lucid and creditable effect and Rebecca Vaughn’s solo work is outstanding. I just found the whole piece satisfying and accomplished rather than remarkable or radical, which the novel is.

outstanding

StarStarStar

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 7 August)

Go to Dyad Productions

Visit Edinburgh49’s Assembly Roxy archive.

+3 Review: Hot Brown Honey (Assembly Roxy, 5 Aug – 28 Aug : 20:20 : 1hr)

Posted in 5*, Assembly Roxy, Cabaret, EdFestivals 2016, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

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“Gleefully challenges stereotypes of sex and race with a full grin, bared chest and raised middle finger.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars Outstanding

I sat for some time before writing this review trying to think of an introduction which best captured what I thought of Hot Brown Honey. But the truth is, there’s not much else which can compare to the bombastic gut punch of a burlesque show Assembly Roxy has somehow managed to contain inside their theatre. From the second that the glass-panelled hive lights roar to life, this show is a nonstop ride that has the audience welded to their seats.

Hosted by unapologetically badass MC Kim “Busty Beatz” Bowers, Hot Brown Honey is a raucously funny and entertaining trip through acrobatics, beatboxing, song, dance and everything in between. But don’t be fooled – despite considerable comedy thrills, it never strays from what makes it so compelling: a show which not only celebrates the power and complex femininity of women of colour, but gleefully challenges stereotypes of sex and race with a full grin, bared chest and raised middle finger.

To talk too much about the acts would lessen their impact, but it cannot be said enough that each segment of performance was distinct, feverishly well executed and consistently jaw dropping. Every single honey from this hive is impressive enough to warrant their own review, let alone packing every single one into a single critique. Of course, for those who aren’t fans of audience participation, proceed with tentative caution: a show like this one demands to spill out into the aisles, to surprising and hilarious results.

The honeycomb that links up this show, however, is both more subtle and infinitely more loud than the performers themselves. There are West End shows that could learn things from the tech team behind the burlesque extravaganza. The sync between every technical element and the behaviour of the set is nothing short of breathtaking, for those who can bear to concentrate on anything but the inspired spectacle going on centre stage.

But what makes Hot Brown Honey such an outstanding show goes beyond its strength in immediacy. When the applause stops and the doors are open, that doesn’t mean the show is over: the messages, ethos and enthusiasm for equality, sexuality and sensuality stick around far after the day is done. As a piece of burlesque, Hot Brown Honey is outstanding simply by merit of its performance. But as a complete show, its greatest triumph is that it fully achieves the vision set out by creators Bowers, Lisa Fa’alafi and Candy B: not simply social activism masquerading as entertainment, but a genuinely thought provoking thrill which, at least personally, will open the eyes of many to any issue they never even know existed.

If you like your shows sexy, superbly skillful and socially conscious, you cannot miss Hot Brown Honey this Fringe. It’s a rare show indeed.

 

outstanding

StarStarStarStarStar

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Reviewer: Jacob Close (Seen 6 August)

Visit the Assembly Roxy archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

+3 Review: Tiff Stevenson: Seven (Assembly Roxy, Aug 8-14, 16-28 : 19.10: 1hr)

Posted in 4*, Assembly Roxy, Comedy, EdFestivals, EdFestivals 2016, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by

https://www.cityvarieties.co.uk/ArticleMedia/Images/CVTiffStevensonbig.jpg

“Stevenson has a presence you could smash a wine bottle on”

Editorial Rating:  4 Stars Nae Bad

When you see a comedian on TV, it’s almost a coin flip as to whether they’ll stand up to their digital performance when you’re maybe ten feet away. For some, it’s clear that they’re funnier as a bundle of pixels – but, as in the case of Tiff Stevenson, proximity makes joke grow funnier.

Even when loping around the stage, Stevenson has a presence you could smash a wine bottle on. Despite being wrapped up in a thick web of humour, it’s clear from the outset that there’s an iron core to every joke: it’s as if scientists managed to fuse Belva Lockwood and someone’s drunk aunt. Pushing their own distinct beliefs is something, consciously or otherwise, all comics do; and Stevenson is a masterclass in delivering it without sounding evangelical. Even if you don’t agree with what she’s saying (however you’ve managed to come to that outcome), you’ll be hard pressed not to laugh along with her.

From the get-go, it’s an unmistakably zeitgeist-y set. In a surprisingly speedy hour, Stevenson runs the full gamut from bus bombings to baby showers, joyously flicking up v’s behind her as she runs from topic to topic. We might be awash in a sea of Macintyres, but Stevenson is one of many happy islands where comedy’s rebellious, fringe roots are still dug deep. No subject is too taboo, as she very happily reminds the audience throughout – however, often the transitional link between these subjects can wave from tenuous to unneeded, but as it takes up perhaps a minute of time in total, it hardly spoils the bunch.

If there ever was a complaint, it was that sometimes Stevenson doesn’t seem to trust her own considerable wit enough. Several times throughout the show, a fantastic joke was extended far beyond its peak, simply for the sake of explaining it. Whilst none of these jokes fell into “unfunny”, it certainly blunted the otherwise fantastically sharp tongue which dominate the rest of the show.

To talk too much about Tiff Stevenson’s set at the Roxy is to do her a disservice: half of the enjoyment comes from the unexpected directions she swerves with every punchline. But if you’re looking to start your evening on a high note, you’ll have no tiff with her.

 

nae bad_blue

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

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Reviewer: Jacob Close (Seen 6 August)

Visit the Assembly Roxy  archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

+3 Review: Life According to Saki (C: 3-29 Aug: 14.15: 1hr 10mins)

Posted in 5*, C Venues, EdFestivals 2016, Theatre by

“As good as Fringe theatre gets… a triumph”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars

It’s always telling when I leave a performance I’ve been reviewing with an almost empty page of notes. It doesn’t happen often, but in this case I was so engrossed that I simply forgot to write much down.

Set in the trenches in WW1, Saki writes to his dear Ethel at home, recounting stories to kill time. His fellow soldiers become the characters in each story and the piece flows seamlessly from one to the next like waves crashing against the shore.

Written by children’s author Katherine Rundell, the script maintains a playful and slightly mischievous feel throughout, expertly capturing the style and tone that Saki’s short stories are known and loved for. For those unfamiliar with his work, think Roald Dahl, but a bit more grown up. Among others there are tales of a man who becomes a living work of art, a couple who can’t get married due to already having 13 children between them, a politician forced to share a room with a pig and a chicken, and a small boy who believes his ferret has god-like qualities. It’s all good clean fun, but with a moral lesson behind each one. Oh and they are funny. Very funny.

The cast keep the piece moving at a fair pace, whipping out props and costumes seemingly from nowhere ready to set the scene the moment it is introduced. Their dexterity is something to be marvelled at, and Jessica Lazar’s direction makes the most of every look, tableau and minor character for maximum impact. It’s a show that pays great attention to detail, which I very much admire.

While the ensemble cast is fantastic, playing a multitude of characters of differing genders, ages and nationalities to comic perfection, it’s David Paisley (playing Saki himself) who stands out at as the star performer. Gentle, engaging and with great emotional sensitivity it’s almost impossible not to fall in love with him.

Yes, the props and set are quite basic and the narrative is little more than Saki recounting stories while killing time in the trenches, but the soul and spirit of this piece are really what makes it. And when I really think about it (which in this case I did, long and hard), in my humble opinion this is about as good as Fringe theatre gets. Simply, a triumph.

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

—

Reviewer: Steve Griffin (Seen 7 August)

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

+3 Review: Queen Lear (Assembly Roxy: 4 – 29 Aug. 16.10. 1h)

Posted in 4*, Assembly Roxy, EdFestivals 2016, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by
Image. Assembly & Ronnie Dorsey productions

Image. Assembly & Ronnie Dorsey productions

“Exquisite”

Editorial Rating:  4 Stars:  Outstanding

Shakespeare’s Lear is a pathetic apologist : ‘I am a very foolish, fond old man’, who (by his frail reckoning) would have fathered Cordelia in his late sixties. And he didn’t stop there. Why should he? He’s a King of ‘wild, roaring, lecherous men’ who live for ‘war, wine, and whoring’. So, in Ronnie Dorsey’s new and exquisite piece we come to his second queen, heavily pregnant and in great pain. No Lear is to be seen but his expectation of a son, for once legitimate, is almost unbearable.

Remember Lear’s ‘Let copulation thrive’? Well, he ends that hateful, mad, speech longing for anything ‘to sweeten my imagination’. Enter Queen Lear.

Three characters: the young queen; her devoted companion Ursula; and her priest, Lawrence. Back story: the queen was married at 16 and leaves her home in the Borders for good. She is cruelly abused by a husband who, after beating her, kicks her small dog to death. Rooks caw about the castle walls (we assume that the queen’s chamber is in a castle) and in these harsh, loveless, circumstances it is doubly touching to hear Ursula call her queen ‘Sweeting’.

Dorsey writes words that hold and sustain. Queen Lear grasps sympathy where it can be found and does not let go. The queen, who knows that she will not be remembered, talks of the coming birth with dread. She would have the child but fears she will not survive the labour. In her time a caesarean section is all about cutting and not delivery. Alice Allemano plays a woman living the agony of the fact that ‘this child is killing me’, so if ever a role has to be in extremis, then this is it. Jane Goddard plays Ursula with a loving solicitude that is never familiar but always kind. Mary McCusker, as Lawrence, has ‘his’ own confession to make in a performance of great sensitivity and control.

Mark Leipacher directs. It is a tight work, physically and emotionally close, as you’d expect of a confinement and what lightness and lift there is comes from the lyrical quality of Dorsey’s lines. Three benches and an embroidered bolster are the only props required. The queen is in an elegant gown that denotes her high rank but which confers neither influence nor power. She can only hope against hope that Lear’s Fool will somehow protect Cordelia.

When resolution comes to such a forlorn situation it’s hard to take. You might not accept it, but that’s the point. For Lear’s queen there is no healing touch for her ‘female wounds’.

 

outstanding

StarStarStarStar

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 6 August)

Visit Edinburgh49’s Assembly Roxy  archive.

+3 Review: Molly Whuppie (Assembly Roxy: 4-28 Aug. 1030. 1hr 15)

Posted in 4*, Assembly Roxy, EdFestivals 2016, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by
Image. Assembly & LicketySpit Theatre

Image. Assembly & LicketySpit Theatre

“Smiling, tuneful, and big-hearted”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Nae Bad

Molly Whuppie is a pickle of a lassie. She’s bright, bonny and brave and saves her mother and sister from dying of hunger on a northern shore. She’s a fairy tale character from the Western Highlands , whom English cousin Jack – of beanstalk fame – would love to meet, for their stories are pretty close; although Molly (aka. Maol a Chliobain) steals it, as her baddie is no the giant, but one King Boris (!), who loves his meringues too, too much.

Smiling, tuneful, and big-hearted, Molly Whuppie has toured all over Scotland and has already, since 2001, delighted upwards of 30,000 people. Licketyspit Theatre Company is Edinburgh based but has decided, as the International Festival posters have it, to ‘Welcome [the]World’ so this is the company’s Fringe premier and it’s a treat.

If you’re still fortunate to be in your early years – and therefore very unlikely to be reading this! – Licketyspit is for you. If you’re alongside a young child, then you’ll appreciate the modesty of the fact that all actors do is ‘show the story’ in exciting and imaginative ways. First then, there’s fearless Molly (Amy McGregor) who keeps her pretty red beret on even when balancing for her life on the Bridge of the One Hair, and we sing “I’m Molly and you can’t scare me / I’m Molly, Hee Hee Hee!” Second, there’s Virginia Radcliffe as Ninian the Giant in tremendous sandals and as horrid King Boris with a wonderful polka dot jester’s cap. No crown of majesty for him, just fanfare by kazoo.

Radcliffe is also Artistic Director of LicketySpit and it is easy in Molly Whuppie to see hers years of experience in building drama-led work for children and their families. There’s a good strong narrative where the good and the kind – above all – prevail, constantly reinforced by repetitive elements of colour, music and song. Invention is everywhere, from the reveal of successive kind grannies to land clearance by tree hurling.

Yes, it was probably devised as a December, Christmassy show when Molly, her mum, and her sister are perishing of cold and, yes, there’s the question of how come only giants have a Never Empty Purse; but no matter really, this is a warm and generous show with stick puppets to colour in and cut out afterwards.

 

nae bad_blue

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 6 August)

Go to Assembly Children’s Shows

Visit Edinburgh49’s Assembly Roxy archive.