Lapin Wants Breakfast is the bilingual story of a hungry rabbit desperate for his petit-dejeuner. Tania, a Parisian woman, has just flown from France to Edinburgh and introduces us to her french rabbit friend, Lapin. It is early in the morning and Lapin wants his breakfast so Tania must help him find it with the aid of her three friends: Escargot, Oiseau and Ver. Lapin Wants Breakfast is a one woman show in which Tania imaginatively manipulates the puppet bodies and voices of her animal friends. The storyline is simple and the colours are bold, making this an ideal morning out for families with particularly young children.What is most impressive about Lapin Wants Breakfast is its capability for interaction between the audience and characters and its subtle use of the French language to help ingratiate children into learning new words. Parents are supplied with a list of the vocabulary used in the play so they can take it home and continue their child’s exploration into different languages. Through repetition, the children pick up new words surprisingly quickly. By the mid point of the performance, the young audience were shouting ‘Bonjour’ and ‘Au Revoir’ to all their new friends and calling them by their French names. This is a play where children are encouraged to shout, sing and dance along. Tania’s stage presence is friendly and genial but she still manages to keep the more excitable children in the audience under control.Her handmade set and puppets are delightful and her ability to manipulate them is simple yet impressive. The morals of the story are also subtle yet important. Lapin Wants Breakfast shows the importance of sharing, helping, and being grateful, without being dogmatic.My criticisms for this show are entirely technical. Sometimes transitions between scenes last too long and started to drag. The repetition of the basic theme tune also became quite irritating after five or six times. Other than this, there is little to criticise for a show so dedicated to its young audience.If you are interested in developing your child’s awareness of new languages, this is a wonderful platform in which to do so. Pretty, enjoyable and funny, this children’s show is not only educational but very entertaining
