My Mother Told Me Not To Stare – Action Transport Theatre, Ellesmere Port

Writer: Finegan Kruckemeyer

Music: Martyn Harry

Director: Nina Hajiyianni

Reviewer: Katherine Kirwin

The Public Reviews Rating:

My Mother Told Me Not To Stare (MMTMNTS) is a gothic, puppet performance for children and adults alike, told in an operetta style. This production stretches the boundaries of what can be called children’s theatre in a darkly entertaining, absurd tour de force.

MMTMNTS presents a world of Upper Crumble where children are instructed a set of strict rules which must be obeyed, all of which seem to be inspired by the old wife’s tales we have all grown up with – ‘never stare’ ‘never swallow the pips of your fruit’. If these rules are broken on purpose by the children then they disappear, mysteriously and ominously. Imagine a lump of Road Dahl’s dark humour, mixed with Tim Burton’s aesthetic style and a dash of Sweeney Todd, and that gives you an idea of this production.

The storyline of the piece followed the development of Bobby Rogers as he grows from a boy to a man, losing his friend because she broke the rules, challenging ‘The List’ and learning that it is better to do something good because it’s good than because something bad will happen. The physical performance by Gary Hughes as Bobby Rogers was captivating as his awkward, exaggerated body grew into the strong physicality of a man.

The action is fantastically presented by the narration of The Man, confidently performed by Tom Bates, as a British Willy Wonka-esque guide to this dark world, speaking in a lyrical manner which blends almost seamlessly between spoken narration and song. Each of the actors in this company is frighteningly talented; not just as actors, but singers, musicians and puppeteers. The puppets were my favourite aspect ranging from a miniature girl puppet with a mini rubber ring to a giant head of a talkative child, to the full body puppets of the grown-up characters. They were very well integrated into the piece and used to comedic as well as dramatic effect.

There were flaws in this performance in terms of the intensity of the music and enunciation at points, the second half was less engaging than the first, however I cannot help but focus on the positive elements and applaud the efforts of Hullabaloo and Action Transport Theatre. Opera is often perceived to be an elitist art-form, an acquired taste, but if we fail to introduce young people to opera then there will be a whole generation who become excluded from a potentially rich art-form. This production is making a feisty, concerned effort to create an operetta that speaks to young people’s concerns yet engages the adults accompanying them. As I left I overhead someone say that it was ‘very challenging’ and that’s exactly the direction in which young people’s theatre should be moving.