© Hugo Glendinning. (Click image for larger version)
Forced Entertainment
The Possible Impossible House
London, Barbican Pit
18 December 2014
www.forcedentertainment.com
www.barbican.org.uk
Forced Entertainment’s first show conceived for young people is a whimsical ode to the power of storytelling. Narrator Richard Lowdon leads us into The Possible Impossible House and its adventures through a series of remarkably immersive projections cast on to cardboard scraps he holds up. Accompanist/foley artist/disruptive element Cathy Naden keeps interrupting proceedings with suggestions, questions, and excessive celery eating.
The tale of the drawn girl we discover in a maths book, and her missing special spider friend provides the traditional quest structure, with comforting nods to storytelling convention (if you’re in a story, there must be a way out of the cupboard you’ve been shut in, otherwise you’d never have been put there, goes the reasoning).
© Hugo Glendinning. (Click image for larger version)
Hazards include a cohort of soldiers who’ve been practising their dance routine for four years and are still struggling to perfect it, and a flock of birds with a penchant for group choreography. These are the only nods to dance, it must be admitted, in what is in fact a very static production. But there’s enough lo-fi charm to this Christmas offering to keep a roomful of kids quiet, so it’s doing something right.
You must be logged in to post a comment.