This wordless blue and white play about play for under-fours uses everyday objects as triggers for imaginative watery journeys. Thus Luke Walker, as a gentle, rather vulnerable and solitary small boy, creates a boat from an upturned umbrella and then a more elaborate boat using a step ladder.
When a pushier, more assertive girl (Eve Robertson) arrives, the boat becomes more elaborate but she wants to be in charge and is inclined to marginalise her ‘friend’. When she snatches something from him and he sags in visible hurt there is an audible gasp from the tinies in the audience, who collectively recognise unkindness and failure to share when they see it.
Both actors are mimetically skilled. Robertson, who looks very much like a young Susannah York, has a lovely range of facial expressions and large eyes which speak volumes. Walker gets the little boy’s shifts between joy and sadness just right. When Robertson utters the ‘little word’ of the title and the only word in the piece - sorry! - the effect is magical. The making of paper boats together at the end works well too and every child in the audience goes home with a blue and white programme and instructions as to how to make it into a paper boat.
The action is attractively underpinned by Tayo Akinbode’s music - gentle, tuneful and rhythmic by turns to reflect the mood.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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