My five-year-old daughter Hilda loves penguins, principally Pingu and Peso, the dedicated medic on Octonauts. She’s excited to see this show about a daddy penguin and his chick; I’m intrigued, too, because we both loved Filskit Theatre’s last winter warmer, Breaking the Ice.
However, en route to the Unicorn I discover that a) Hilda is expecting real penguins and b) she has no memories of that show from 2015. But the kids all dressed up as polar bears and huskies, I say, and you invaded the stage and hopped along icebergs! She looks back at me blankly.
The lack of genuine flightless birds in Huddle is quickly forgotten as Joseph Barnes-Phillips struts out in a costume that’s part dungaree and part flippery wetsuit. He’s perfected his penguin cry – a squawk which the kids soon imitate – and his flappity antics are neatly matched by ragtime jazz. This mischievous penguin is more Pingu than Peso, but he discovers a new sense of responsibility after a large egg is delivered to him in a crate that floats down from above. Suspense builds in the audience as the lid opens to let out a mysterious glow – I can’t watch this without thinking of Repo Man – and Hilda is in hysterics when the egg is recklessly thrown around the stage.
And what a stage. Filskit specialise in combining projections with live action, and a colony of penguins can be seen gently waddling on a screen throughout the show. An affecting animated prologue gives daddy penguin a bit of backstory, but it’s too subtle for Hilda to comprehend (and she’s at the top of the two-to-five age range for the show). Still, Hilda loves the set and costumes by Maxwell Nicholson-Lailey: a washing line holds a row of paper fishes that the penguins guzzle, and both the handsome sleigh and the icy slide look enticing for the young audience.
Soon, the egg has hatched and daddy penguin has his flippers full. As the newly hatched chick, Victoria Dyson wears an eggshell hat and a downy grey costume that cleverly sheds sections as she grows up, revealing a penguin suit beneath. Dyson goes from wide-eyed wonder at her new surroundings to helplessness when the chick gets hungry. Barnes-Phillips veers between finding his little one adorable and exasperating; this isn’t played purely for laughs and all parents will recognise his bleary behaviour.
Hilda is beaming as the penguin teaches his chick to walk in a little duet and when the two play hide and seek. There’s what the BBFC might deem “mild peril” as projections of gulls circle above the chick. There are also episodes about discovering independence, growing in confidence and caring for each other in an icy climate, often backed – appropriately enough – by chillout music.
“There were a few sad bits weren’t there?” Hilda says at the end. “I felt sorry for the little penguin.” But it’s the jazzy penguin pranks that I think she’ll remember, and she isn’t the only kid squawking on her way out of the theatre.
• Huddle is at the Unicorn theatre, London, until 6 January.
