FIREMAN SAM TO THE RESCUE!
BBC Productions
18 May 2006
Lyceum Theatre
OK. Let’s get the adult stuff over
with!
As a play this ranks alongside the
worst that I’ve ever seen. With characters drawn from the
popular children’s tv series, the performance is as wooden
as the huge foam heads covering the actor’s faces (Lucky
them!) The dialogue is piped in over loadspeakers and all the
actors gesticulate wildly in an attempt to keep
up.
It’s by far the weakest of the
BBC led adaptations that I’ve seen and if you’ve seen as
much children’s theatre as I have then this is something of
an insult. It’s lazy and has no more charm or depth than a
fire talk in a local school hall.
If you’ve ever seen the
marvellous ‘The Gruffalo’, (also reviewed on this website)
you’ll realise just how far this production falls short of
being a play that should be allowed to grace our
theatres.
However, and here’s the problem,
my 3 year old loved it – so much so that she was able to sit
though it twice on different occasions and enjoy it both
times.
I wont bother describing the plot,
as I don’t have the energy. Needless to say it involves
naughty children, runaway sheep, fire-risks at a fete and
Fireman Sam saving the day. It also has several songs to keep
the action moving and most of them heavily coded with fire
safety messages, (don’t run into a burning building, don’t
play with matches – that sort of thing).
(And the
high
point for me were the
scene changes that seemed to take an eternity, featuring the
slowest moving scene shifters in history – very
funny).
At around 90 mins, including an
interval, and lots of audience participation (the maleavolent
sheep’s behind you!) this might just keep your very little
ones happy. However, if they’re over four they might want
something with a bit more sophisitication, and dare I say it,
depth.
Shame on you
BBC!
Written by Paul
Tyree
www.paultyree.co.uk
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