The wide-eyed thrill of being inspired, the sparks you generate when you are doing something you love, the moments when you are buzzing and bursting with energy and life and there seems so much of it you think you might explode – where does it go? It makes a little red thing: a little red thing that floats into the air and comes down with the rain, ready to start all over again.
Being blessed by the self-generating life of a red thing (very cute and bright-eyed Furby-like puppet creatures) must be very similar to being in the presence of these bright performers. Brimming with human goodness and hope, it seems like this loose-haired, loose-clothed bunch of youths has bounded in from the local Steiner school. And lucky for us that they have.
Their narrative is refreshing, original and imaginative and their presence in front of an audience is exceptionally calm and measured. A sound skill-base in puppetry serves their ideas with precision and panache – notably touching is the configuration of one of the old trees in a forest: gathering itself up with a net, and with a mask for bark, its four animators bring a stroke of life to its trunk.
One of the well-placed touches of this piece is that it makes you believe that we are all responsible for each other’s happiness. How uplifting. Born completely from its own ideas and thirsty to share them with their audience, this show leaves a warm smile inside you. Perhaps a little red thing has landed on my shoulder.