Giraffes Can’t Dance

Published Friday 14 December 2007 at 17:30 by John Thaxter

The Blunderbus company presents an ambitious staging of Giles Andreae’s anthropomorphic story, set within and around a Jungle Dance where all the animals join in except the tall, bandy-legged Gerald the Giraffe, who keeps falling over. 

Their 60-minute show is book-ended by a catchy Giraffes Can’t Dance calypso, changing from negative to positive as Gerald at last finds his true balletic style.

The animal puppet creations by the director and Jessica Kay are superb, ranging from bunraku manipulation for the anteater, tortoise and cricket, giant head-masks for the chimps and lions, plus animal heads on sticks for the zebras and buffalo.

As the central figure, Gerald is a combination creation with an awkwardly bowed head, and although appealingly played by tuneful tenor Chris Gordon, he never achieves ‘giraffic’ reality. Some animals - including the tortoise - defy gravity with a tendency to boing through the air as living missiles, performance features that could benefit from improved movement direction.

If the young target audience of three to seven-year-olds tended to fidget during the musical numbers, they all responded brilliantly to a singalong at the end, which suggests that better, more active participation could give this show the boost it needs.