“Has anyone been watching the Olympics?” called out story tellers Macastory at the beginning of the show. Down to the tiniest tot the audience roared with laughter. Of course we’d been watching the Olympics. Even the most sport-phobic troglodyte had surely picked up on the Murray-mania sweeping Scotland. Champion of Champions!, performed by Ron Fairweather and Fergus McNicol of Macastory, is not about the champions of today however, but rather the champions of myths and legends.
After a slow start – the joke bickering between Fairweather and McNicol may start to grate on parents and the selection of children from the audience took unnecessarily long- the pace picked up as silly costumes were donned and the story of Cu Chullain, champion of Celtic myth began. Inventive use was made of puppets and a shadow screen by Macastory along with a copious amount of audience participation. Tired parents be warned: the required audience participation is highly active. At times it felt like I was watching more of the show standing up waving my arms than I was sitting down.
The show makes stars of the children chosen from the audience who represent the three mythical champions. A personal bugbear of mine is children’s shows where children are selected from the audience and then left to flail about aimlessly on stage unsure what they should be doing. There was no such problem here; the children were well-guided and seemed to be having a whale of a time, to the extent that one got a little too into character when given weapons and had to be discouraged from hitting Fairweather with a - cardboard - hammer.
Champion of Champions! is more story-telling than educational theatre and parents looking for their little ones to be taught the historical background of the Olympic Games will likely be disappointed. Not that the parents there seemed to mind; the kids were obviously having a great time.
The Fringe programme probably overstates the suitable age range of 5-12 years; 5-9 years will be the group who will most enjoy this. Though there were younger children in the audience a few became restless during the quite long stories. Older children may find all the joining in and gestures a little embarrassing and silly. For parents worrying that their 5-9 year old children are vegetating in front of the television during the summer holidays this is an entertaining show to get them up and active and introduce them to some first-rate storytelling.
