Most companies attempt to stage-manage press performances so that everything appears perfect. Not Oily Cart, a theatre company up there with the most pioneering of the last quarter-century. It’s a reflection of the inspirational and all-inclusive nature of their practice that the press showing for the company’s latest touring show for three-to-five-year-olds included a sizeable number of older children with learning difficulties. And it’s a tribute to the sensitivity of an experienced and crack cast, wearing mismatched footwear, that all disruptions were seamlessly incorporated into the show.
Loosely inspired by the nursery rhyme about the woman with too many children who lives in a shoe, this show has many of the familiar Oily Cart ingredients including smells (wafting lavender), sounds (lovely live music), a magical environment and plenty of interactivity between cast and children, who become as much part of the show as the performers themselves . I’ve seen it before in another Oily Cart show, but the way the young audience are given their very own baby to feed and put to sleep at the end of the show, in this instance in a giant shoe, is a delight.
The narrative is less compact and more meandering than you might expect from this experienced company, and the connections between the sleepy princess, the children’s own nap moment on lavender-filled pillows and the final sequence is too scattergun. Length is definitely an issue too: while the greet-the-audience section outside the performance space, where we first meet the old woman in her boot-shaped car, is essential to the relaxed nature of the experience, it extends a show that is definitely over-long for this age group (not to mention mine). But it’s engaging work from a touring company who are a shoo-in when it comes to making great theatre.
• From 13 January, Warwick arts centre, Coventry. Box office: 024 7652 4524. Then touring until 14 February.
