The Play performed by The Illyria Theatre Company. Seen at Ightam Mote 17th August.
This was my Mum’s birthday treat for my daughters who are soon to be 7 and 10 years old. I wouldn’t recommend taking younger children than that to this play as it could be a little slow moving in places and some kids were starting to get bored towards the end of the first half. It picked up after the interval though, and they had everyone’s attention – especially when the girl grew to the size of a giant!
I was really impressed with this play – it must have taken hours and hours of practice to get all the coreography right. There were only five actors. The youngest character was mostly a puppet/doll and the men wore dresses for some of the time which the kids found hilarious! So there were a lot of costume changes in the little tent behind the stage; and along with making sure they left the right props and instruments at the correct place ready for the next actor, like I said, it must have taken a lot of practice, because I didn’t notice anything going wrong.
The sand fairy worked really well, as did all the wishes the children made. It was very entertaining and we had a lovely evening. I have one huge criticism though: the price. I spotted Mum’s receipt and it said £39.99!!! For 2 adults and 2 chlidren. I thought that was ridiculous. But does explain the very upper-middle classness of the people sitting around me with kids with names like Savannah and Marcus and oh so lovely picnics! Having just come back from Glastonbury where performances very similar to this one were going on whereever you looked in the Theatre and Kidz fields included in the price (and people who’ve never been still say ‘£120 for a ticket; that’s a bit much isn’t it?’) I was just a little shocked.
So, if you’re loaded, look up your nearest National Trust property for one of their plays, as I expect they are all as good. This company also do Guillivers Travels and other children’s stories. And at the end of a lovely hot day with the evening sun shining on the old house in front of us, it really was lovely. But take a blanket as it did get cold once the sun had disapeared.
