Magic in more than one sense is on display in this exceptional piece of storytelling for five to ten-year-olds from Exeter-based Theatre Alibi. However, it is the magic of the unusual and enthralling narrative that outshines the occasional slight-of-hand from the cast to ensure the rapt attention of the young audience.
Regular Theatre Alibi author Daniel Jamieson spans the generations with a story that is easier to follow than it may sound, and is hugely enhanced by live cello music composed by Harry Napier and played by Raphael Munton. Two children, one Polish and one English, are linked by mementos of their grandparents which are lost and found in turn. Radek, in Poland, loses his grandfather’s treasured silver watch at exactly the same moment that Rachel, hundreds of miles away in England, finds a name sewn into a old pair of gloves passed down by her grandmother.
The two are eventually brought together by that form of modern magic, the internet, as the history of the lost and found items link to the enemy occupation of Poland and the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War.
What might appear to be difficult themes for youngsters are put across in that easy manner so essential to children’s theatre by Derek Frood, Jordan Whyte and Frank Wurzinger, while director Nikki Sved brings out both the touching nature of the eventual friendship and the harsh realities of events that have gone before.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
Content is copyright © 2012 The Stage Media Company Limited unless otherwise stated.
All RSS feeds are published for personal, non-commercial use. (What’s RSS?)
