You and Me and the Space Between

There’s a happy little island called Proud Circle in an ocean somewhere.  It’s a balanced, organised society where everything works perfectly from the cradle to the (watery) grave.  (The old folks disappear voluntarily into the sea – which may be a little controversial for a kids’ show.)  The curious thing about this island is that it floats.  It’s not attached.  But one day, out of the blue, it springs a leak.  If this goes on…  What to do?  While the adults try things that fail and then argue and panic, it’s a twelve-year-old girl who comes up with a temporary solution. 

Of course she does.  It’s a show for kids – although kids of just what age group is a question worth asking.  Later, the story and the problems get much more complicated: the islanders must find not just safety, but a new home among people different from, and suspicious of, them.  If you sense an allegorical level here, to do with refugees, you would not be wrong.

But You and Me is less the puppet show you might have expected.  There are no puppet characters.  The whole thing is narrated – and very warmly and well too - by Katherine Tonkin, assisted by composer and musician Dean Stevenson, and illustrated live, on the spot, by artist Oslo Davis.  Mr Davis’ colourful, cartoony drawings are projected onto a big paper screen that stretches across the playing space.  Watching his drawings turn into the island itself, a range of characters, birds, trees and questions is quite delightful and engaging – at least at first. 

So the show, directed by Sam Routledge, is bit like having a giant picture book read to you – one that grows and evolves across the telling.  The overall design is by award winning Jonathon Oxlade, with moody lighting by Nicholas Higgins.  There is a puppeteer present – Felicity Horsley, a lively bright spark – but she doesn’t really have a lot to do beyond opening holes in the big screen and raising and lowering other bits of paper on wires. 

The writer, Finegan Kruckemeyer, is an immensely experienced and successful playwright for children.  I must say, however, that You and Me cannot his best work.  Okay, a ‘tale of wonder and invention’ (as the program notes assert) need not be entirely plausible, but it is complicated in its contrivances, and, despite Mr Oslo’s drawings and with due respect to Ms Tonkin and Ms Stevenson, as it goes on it becomes somewhat, well, soporific.  The kids in the audience seemed to be attentive enough, but whether they really ‘got’ this worthy – not to say preachy – story is another question.  Rather than innovative, the presentation itself feels like something of a constrained compromise  (c.f. the wonderful The Rabbits) and therefore a disappointment coming from this well regarded company.

Michael Brindley