Theatre preview: Imagine Festival highlights

THE Imaginate festival is back next week with another quirky selection of children’s shows. Director Tony Reekie shares his highlights with Mark Fisher

This year’s Bank of Scotland Imaginate Festival includes more than a dozen international shows for children, ranging from a Swedish play about a boy with a love of stones to a French dance show that’s taken its name from Edinburgh’s own Traverse Theatre. To select his line-up, artistic director Tony Reekie spends the year seeking out the world’s best work for young people. It is frequently surprising, unconventional and provocative, and almost always highly entertaining. We asked him to choose six shows that epitomise the range and flavour of what’s on.

RUMPELSTILTSKIN

COMPANY: Stella Den Haag (Netherlands). Age: 8+ years.

What is it? A fresh twist on the Grimm’s fairytale.

Where is it? Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, 8-9 May.

“Rumpelstiltskin is a well-known story that tends to be told in quite a jolly way, but there are other ways you can do it. I’ve never seen Rumpelstiltskin done this way before. The girl’s journey is a growing-up process. Rather than her staying the same, she grows up and becomes a woman. That way of looking at it shifts the story. It makes it much more suitable for eight years and over; it’s a family show that treats its audience with a lot of respect. The actors are on stage all the time, they perform all the music, there’s no hidden mechanics. It’s very visual and very rich in terms of the music and storytelling and Rumpelstiltskin is genuinely a bit creepy. It’s done with such class.”

h.g

company: Trickster-p (Switzerland). Age: 9+ years.

What is it? An audience of two at a time experience Hansel and Gretel in an atmospheric installation.

Where is it? Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 12-14 May.

“The children enter in pairs, almost as if they are Hansel and Gretel going through the woods. As you go through this environment, you get fragments of the story, so it’s a lot to do with your imagination. You’re never quite sure where you’re going to go, but it never ever lets you down. It’s very specific for the age range (it’s not for the under nines) and they really enjoy being in an environment which, at times, does have the hairs rising on the back of your neck. It’s like walking through someone else’s dream and joining in. It shows you the power of fairytales to be retold over and over again and demonstrates that you can tell any story in any way you want. As long as you make a connection with the audience, they will go a long way with you.”

Kindur

Company: Compangnia TPO (Italy). Age: 6+ years.

What is it? A high-tech interactive drama about Icelandic sheep.

Where is it? Brunton Theratre, Musselburgh, 10-12 May.

“Kindur is the children’s theatre equivalent of a Sigur Rós album – done by Italians. It’s very elemental with a lovely interaction with technology. The floor cloth changes with the movement of the dancers. You also have this interactive element, so that every member of the audience becomes a sheep; they all have woolly hearts and when the hearts light up in certain ways, you have to do a certain thing, which will sometimes involve being on stage. It is interactive in a way that doesn’t lessen the impact of the dance or the world that you’re in. You get the geysers, the volcanoes, the fire and the cold, but you also get to interact with it. If you want to go along with your family and have a lovely experience, this is a really good show to go to.”

Grug

CompANy: Windmill Theatre (Australia). Age: 3–6 years.

What is it? A puppet show featuring the popular Australian picture book character.

“This is really good fun. It’s lovely to spend time with this strange little character. In Australia, he’s very well-known, like the Mister Men or something, but that’s irrelevant because it’s a universal piece of theatre. It’s a colourful puppet show, really smartly done, with lots of theatrical invention. Windmill Theatre took something that could be quite mainstream and turned it into a very good piece of theatre. If you have a young family, this is something that’s quite easy to get into, the characters are straightforward and good fun, and it stands up technically and in terms of invention alongside everything we have in the festival.”

This (Baby) Life

Company: Sally Chance Dance (Australia). Age: 4–18 months.

What is it? A two-way sensory dance show for babies.

Where is it? North Edinburgh Arts Centre, 9-12 May.

“If you’re sceptical about shows for babies, you get persuaded by pieces like This (Baby) Life. The audience are very close to the performers and sometimes can even be on top of them. They are allowed to do what they want; up to 18 months old, they’ve no idea where the boundaries are – so there are none. The director watches every performance and gently suggests things to the performers so they take it in different directions according to the mood of the audience. When I saw it, it ended up with the audience pretending they were sleeping, which was a very gentle way to finish, but they told me the previous show had ended with drums, so it’s very fluid.”

By the Seat of Your Pants

Company: Plutôt la Vie and Howden Park Centre (Scotland).

Age: 7+ years.

What is it? Three men and a chair in knockabout comedy.

Where is it? North Edinburgh Arts Centre, 8-9 May, Traverse Theatre, 11-13 May.

“This show has some of the finest clown performers in Scotland which means you can go out and just have a really good time. If it’s a good clown show and it works, it will still be about what it means to be a human being. By the Seat of Your Pants is about things not quite working, going wrong and not being quite what we want them to be. It can be a joyous shared experience and as profound as you want it to be. When I saw it, I was sitting next to two girls and their granny. Before the show, the granny was apologising to me – ‘I’m not sure about this’ – but at the end she was in tears of laughter. They loved it and it was genuinely a multigenerational experience.”

• The Bank of Scotland Imaginate Festival is at various venues around Edinburgh, 7–14 May. Full programme at www.imaginate.org.uk/festival.