Tony Reekie, director of the Imaginate festival, believes that children have as much right to be entertained as adults. If grown-ups can enjoy daft comedies, why not kids? For this reason, his international festival, while it expands our appreciation of what children's theatre can be, has never been serious-minded.
This year's festival, by contrast, opens with two plays for older children from Dutch theatre company Stella Den Haag, best described as emo-drama. In Thick Skinned Things and Ugly Child, both written by Hans van den Boom, the company homes in on self-conscious teenagers' turbulent moods. The first play, a short monologue about a woman so shy she lives underground like a mole, has a delicate intensity and a fantastically jarring soundtrack. But it wallows so despairingly in its alienation, it leaves you dispirited.
Ugly Child is more ambitious, less indulgent and, by suggesting there is an end to the "black tunnel period", more redeeming. Against a live score of pop standards so good it sometimes upstages the dialogue, the six actors talk their way through a story of burgeoning sexuality and emotional confusion. As Lieve Wellington, a girl misled into falling for the wrong boy, Floor van Berkestijn perfectly captures the sense of bolshy, vulnerable self-absorption.
Back on sillier territory, Swiss company Theater Sgaramusch's show Queen proves the missing link between Katie Mitchell and Morecambe and Wise. It's a cartoonish retelling of the story of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots through the medium of a radio drama recording. Behind the technical tricks and comedy lies a genuine history lesson.
