We are greeted by upbeat pop music, a colourful set with punting, broad stripes of hanging cloth, a hay bale, and feathers playfully dancing.
Old MacDonald’s and the Whizz Bang Pop Tune plays (for rather long) to a patient if slightly confused audience. Suddenly – very suddenly – Kato the Karate Cat leaps out, throwing kicks and punches. Too much for one little one. I’m assured Kato is to tone this touch down.
Next Hattie the Hen fills us in on the plot, namely that she is the layer of prize-winning eggs on this farm and a relevant competition looms.
Next we meet Rodney the bombastic Rooster, Honey Bunny, Princess Sparkle, all of whom become suspects, (along with Kato of course) to the dastardly crime of the theft of the prize-winning eggs. When Herlock Bones finally arrives on the scene, we know all will be soon made good again.
Early on, the children and adults are invited to participate in a Dance routine; the children are enrolled in watching the eggs, in out-singing Rodney (which several found a bit tricky, as it was a bit fast).
My daughter laughed. Out loud. A lot. Especially during the chase scenes!
There is very good energy throughout, it’s fast paced, with bright impactful (if not homemade) costumes. The adults laughed a lot too with a fun conspiratorial feel. The children were fully rapt throughout. Nearly the whole audience at my showing were little boys who seemed to just love it, one particularly keen and earnest boy yelling at the top of his head, “Rodney Took Them!!!”
The arrival of Herlock was quite intriguing as the littler ones felt they somehow recognised him (two actors play the entire cast) but he was quite transformed from Rodney or Kato. Good use of new body mannerisms and voice
Plenty of simple but effective choreographed physical interactions between the characters. Exhausting energy, pace, commitment, lots of humour, plus (almost) real intrigue as several characters are implicated. Strangely in all this chaos, the slightly late appearance of Princess Sparkle led to an inadvertent moment of stillness, which the audience seemed to actually appreciate, sitting in quiet overwhelmed-ness. Phew! Then off again!
Gentle innuendo keeps the adults entertained, lots of silly jokes, smelly pants jokes, visual jokes, and puns. All good. Princess Sparkle was a transformation, which took my daughter in for a while.
Yet another dance routine for the children to learn, listening and responding to the children’s shouts working for them, and invariably satisfying and quietening them. A basic crazy Whodunit, cum Panto, written by a member of Whizz Bang Pop (she who was Hattie!) and capped off with a bit of water-spray on an audience member or two (or three). I won’t tell you whodunit. Go for yourself, and find out!
