‘Winter is long,” sighs the baby penguin on stage. No need telling that to a crowd of bleary-eyed parents and carers, with their own squawking chicks in tow, for this adaptation of Emma Dodd’s popular book.
The Little Angel puppet theatre does a reliably fun festive show – I have fond memories of the chatty stockings waiting to be filled in 2013’s The Night Before Christmas (“Hope there’s a satsuma!”). First put on in 2016, Samantha Lane’s production Me … now has a run in its studio space. Children sprawl on soft mats before a stage that is framed by designer Simon Plumridge with slabs of cracked ice.
Dodd’s chick’s-eye-view tale about an overwhelming world is told with gentle rhythms and reassuring repetition. It’s a comforting book that ends with a practically mandatory hug from whoever reads it. A folksy opening song by Arran Glass interweaves familiar lines from the story as we watch a chick hatch at the feet of an emperor penguin, with a puppet controlled in each hand by Lori Hopkins. Jimmy Grimes’s designs are appealing: the big penguins have the right shimmering grace, while the fluffy baby has the same look as a plush cuddly toy. The rest of the colony are suggested by a cacophony of cries that puzzlingly morph into Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
While Dodd’s tale is for over-ones, this production is for children aged two to five. There are several attempted stage invasions from the toddlers, but I suspect older kids’ attentions may wander during the penguin’s waddling odyssey through wind and water. Partly that’s because the 40-minute production has the same anonymous quality as the book – there is nothing particularly distinctive about this chick – but also because there’s no wow moment and no belly laughs. Still, it’s a sweet, breezy show to brighten up that long winter.
At the Little Angel theatre’s Studios, London, until 2 February.
