Lighten Up

Published Wednesday 27 February 2008 at 12:00 by Susan Elkin

The central character in this unusual piece for children aged five and over is light with which there is some sophisticated fun.

A ribbon of lights, for example, becomes in turn a worm, geometric shapes, a human figure and a cobra among other things. There are some good ultra violet-lit puppets, including an engaging green dog adeptly managed by Michael Fowkes, too.

A balletic show, it has a lot of theatrical inventiveness and self-reference and the moment when all the technology is supposed to have crashed and you first see the five hooded figures who are the cast/puppeteers is both funny and effective.

Mei Mei’s underwater dance below ribbons of light and with coloured bands of fabric is good to look at and I loved Wurzinger’s games with different shapes of spotlight and the sequence in which the entire cast is chased into the audience by a predatory roaming spot.

In a sense Lighten Up is a play about teamwork and collaboration as Karina Garnett’s finale song makes clear. She and all the cast emerge from their black into shiny clothes in primary colours which creates a real sense of resolution at the end.

It isn’t easy to entertain young children successfully for 55 minutes without any real narrative. I saw it with a party of seven year olds from Christ Church School, Spitalfields. Their rapt enjoyment was testimony to how well it works.