Polite Mammals

Polite Mammals is a marvellous sort of cheeky, off-the-wall sketch show for small kids.  A cabaret for tots. It’s fun and it’s silly, but it’s also witty and sophisticated and just as much fun for parents, carers and any other random adults who wander in.  Kids sit on cushions, right down the front – entranced, and engaged - and I scarcely saw any of them move from start to finish.

Performer and co-creator Kimberly Twiner whispers to the kids that the animals in this show are not really that polite and some are not even mammals – and does anyone have a problem with fart or poo jokes?  Of course not.  If there’re two things kids love, it’s poo jokes and grown-ups behaving badly.  When some skunks come on stage, dance around and fart gleefully, the kids shriek with laughter.  And the performer of the next sketch has to deal with the lingering stink.  Audience engagement: one kid calls out, ‘Put a peg on your nose!’

The show is devised and performed by four very talented, very funny people – Twiner, Lily Fish, Ell Sachs and Sunanda Sachatrakul – who bring to the show their well-honed clowning, mime and dance skills.  Their enjoyment and sense of fun enhances the animals they bring on stage.  Such as koalas, a weightlifting penguin-unicorn combo, ibis (‘bin chickens’), a lemur with a very recalcitrant tail, a bat (that’s a dance number), poo-eating flies, a ‘praying mantis’ (also a creepy dance number), a scared mouse and a slithery snake, a hungry mermaid, and a creature made of bits of other creatures. 

All these creatures are brought on stage distinguished by wonderfully imaginative, colourful costumes - designed by the prodigious Twiner.  They are not a literal attempt to be a koala, a fly or whatever.  The costumes suggest an immediately recognisable – and delightful - version of the creature.  Fabrics are glittery and shiny, insects’ eyes are bra cups, or rubber balls, a mouse’s whiskers are huge pipe cleaners, long beaks or horns are paper mâché – and the performers’ faces are almost always visible… 

The text and the song lyrics  are joint collaborations by the cast – and the music by Jack Lewis is the perfect complement to the songs and the mayhem on stage.  

After the show, director Rinske Ginsberg, tells us, ‘I just love to watch them – but I do ride them hard for more precision, more detail…’  Ginsberg certainly succeeds: the just under an hour show is very precise and detailed – and the pace and energy never falters; communication with the kids is always maintained; the choreography is skilled and funny; and at the end everyone is happy.

Michael Brindley