You can never be certain about the weather during a British summer, but the one thing you can be certain of is that the London Bubble will produce a really good piece of outdoor promenade theatre. This year is no different, although - as with last year's Gilgamesh - there are difficulties in translating the material into a family-friendly evening.
Farhana Sheikh's adaptation does its best by combining the story of Gulliver's adventures with that of a troupe of actors who are putting on a show for the local squire in an attempt to save one of their number from execution. The squire, a vicious landowner, is actually early 18th-century England itself in all its corruption and cruelty, and his park in which the play is performed is England's green and pleasant land. These political asides will pass by younger members of the audience, as will much of Swift's satire.
But everyone can enjoy more familiar episodes in Lilliput and Brobdingnag. Here we see the London Bubble at its most theatrically inventive. In Lilliput, Gulliver, "the man mountain", is surrounded by tiny puppets, while in Brobdingnag he is himself a tiny puppet figure in a world where a fly is the size of an eagle and an eagle the size of a light aircraft.
There is a terrific sense of fun about these episodes: Gulliver's journey to prison unfolds via a simple painted scene on two rollers, and his dousing of the palace fire with his own urine is done with a bucket and a hose.
Attempts to convey ideas are much less successful, however, and the episodes on Laputa and in the country of the Houyhnhnms are too wordy and obscure. The company isn't strong with text: it's much better at delivering clever theatrical solutions with more dash than cash.
At Brockwell Park, London SE24, tonight, then touring until August 25. Box office: 020-7237 1663.
