Kids’ theatre these days can seem so dependent on proven commodities – Peppa, Octonauts, Angelina – that it’s a tad disorientating to pitch up at a show you know nothing about other than its title. But Hiccup Theatre’s fantastically good-natured and energetic performance piece gets you on its side straight away. From the moment you file into the auditorium, monkey-suited actors are joking around with the children, lying on the seats and doing tricks, setting the mood for their hour-long show.
Orchestrated and narrated by Hiccup’s artistic director Ivan Stott, who alternates song-and-music duties with manipulating an ultra-cute baby chimp puppet, Three Wise Monkeys is a nicely judged fable that tells a lightly suspenseful story of the kidnapping of the said baby chimp, and the efforts of three grown-up ones to rescue him. Named Seeno, Hearno and Sayno ( ... Evil, get it?), they are played with heroic agility by Becky Barry, Edward Day and Niamh McGowan, who hurl themselves around the minimal scaffolding set in impressive style. Underneath it all is a firmly realised eco-message, about humanity’s ruinous invasiveness into the natural environment. The kids are learning something, after all.
Three Wise Monkeys also benefits from having Mike Kenny’s name on the front as author – the man is bit of a legend in children’s theatre, with the Waterloo station-based Railway Children under his belt – but, as it turns out, there isn’t a whole lot of writing on display. Other than the songs and asides that Stott gives us, this is a virtually wordless piece – though certainly beautifully structured, with some very nice visual coups. (The pair of glowing disc lamps that stood in for the hunting eyes of a night-time jungle predator were still giving my four-year-old a few nervous moments 24 hours later.)
It’s an impressive show, suitably entertaining for its age group, and the performers really bonded with their audience. This is a company well worth keeping an eye out for.
