One of those shows I wouldn't have gone to if it hadn't been on China Plate's list, and I'm still not sure that the title does anything to sell the show! It clearly needed no selling to the cognoscenti, however, as all shows were sold out.
This is one of the most effective fusions of animation and live action that I have seen. One can only admire the huge amount of time, skill and attention to detail which must have gone into creating it. The three performers, all white-faced a la Charlie Chaplin, gave very competent performances, but the star of the show was the animation. A triptych of white screens are set in a very shallow stage area. Each has square aperture through which the performers' head and shoulders can appear. Onto them a continually inventive and surprising animation is projected. At its simplest, we see the performer travelling through many floors of a ramshackle tenement building in a lift. Then there are split screens, frantic action, crazy camera angle...
The whole production is extremely stylised, from the costumes to the dialogue to the diction, but very succesfully creates its own world "Red Herring St", the wrong side of the tracks. The story owes something to The Pied Piper and makes an unlikely hero of the grumpy caretaker.
From a technical point of view, provided the company were able to tour three powerful video projectors and the necessary trussing to hold them in place, it could theoretically be possible to tour it into larger village halls. The overall quality is so good that any audience , including older children, say 8+, would appreciate it.
However, I suspect that the company have their eyes set on greater things-international festivals etc.
I certainly found it an enjoyable and memorable show, and can just hear my audiences saying "Well, that was certainly different !" - high praise in Cumbria.
Bob of Arts Out West
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