Baa Moo Yellow Dog 2009 press
• The Stage • The Wharf • What's On Stage
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Review
The Stage
Hugh Homan
19 February 2009
Ash lives with his mum, on the third floor, flat 4, with a big red door, by the playground with swings and things and a merry-go-round. But in Baa Moo Yellow Dog, we see Ash take an imaginary journey on his own because he thinks that no one wants to play or share a strawberry ice-cream sundae.
As you enter the performing area, Ash's ‘invisible' friend Play - who interprets the story in Integrated British Sign Language - is already enjoying the brightly coloured set designed by Alison Cartledge. There's a huge blue mountain, a dazzling yellow sun, an alluring pond, a large green tree with enticing vivid fruit and a couple of flowery areas, one with some intriguing blue eggs tucked among the blooms.
Enter Daniel Broadhurst as the likeable Ash. Broadhurst performs the character very simply, avoiding histrionics, seemingly improvising as he goes. He sees a bright blue and a pink bird in the sky - helpfully animated by the ever-present Donna Mullings as Play. He sees a cow who clucks, a horse that flies, a pink pig with wings and a sheep who moos. He also finds a large yellow egg - cunningly hidden behind the blue ones - from which eventually emerges the yellow dog of the title.
An outreach programme accompanies the play in its Tower Hamlets home. A few of the youngsters in Haverhill were not engaged throughout, but most seemed to enjoy it. Robert Lee's taped sounds and music are impressive. However, quite what Charles Darwin would have to say about a dog emerging from an egg and its effect on the children's scientific understanding, I'm not sure.
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Review
The Wharf
John Hill
6 February 2009
Sophie Bryant and her son Devon enter a land of imaginary animals
Anyone who has the pleasure of owning a two-year-old will understand the perils of entertaining such a being. So it was with trepidation that I entered Half Moon's theatre for their 45-minute-long play about imaginary animals and brightly coloured props. I need not have worried. As it happens it's the quietest and most enthralled I think I've ever seen my son. A room full of two to five-year-olds and no noise apart from the actors' voices, the wonderfully composed music and the giggles of an entranced audience.
Baa Moo Yellow Dog is the story of a small lad named Ash whose imagination is allowed to run free as he makes friends with a cow who lives in a pond, a sheep who moos like a cow and a horse who can fly. This amazing play, designed for the youngest of audiences, is expertly written and acted, with the added bonus of integrated British Sign Language (BSL) which brings an educational and different perspective to the work.
The set is bright, cheerful and uncluttered, and even before the performance began the children were looking on and listening with interest as mysterious music played in the background. The two actors on stage - Daniel Broadhurst as Ash and Donna Mullings as his imaginary 'play-friend' Play - kept the audience on their toes, hopping, skipping and jumping through Ash's imaginary world and meeting characters only a young mind could conjure up.
The character Play signs throughout with basic British sign language, which is surprisingly effective. By the end, even people in the audience who had no previous signing experience could confidently recognise a few words in BSL. The children's favourite part (and mine too, actually) seemed to be the yellow dog emerging from a giant blue-spotted egg, as it meant Ash finally had a real friend to share his adventures with.
Where are you when cows think they're chickens, pigs can fly and a horse lives in an apple tree? Why, in the wonderfully bright and cheerful, yet slightly surreal, world of Ash's colourful imagination! Ash is a young boy who lives alone with his mother in a block of flats and has no-one to play with, so he creates an imaginary friend with whom he has a series of adventures.
This delightful fantasy, created and directed by Chris Elwell, is an enchanting and engaging piece of theatre. It is a revisioning of an earlier piece created for children aged 2-5 and their families and carers. In this 45 minute show we are taken by Ash into his world with the support of his imaginary friend Play, performed by a deaf actor, who, as his playmate, becomes both mirror and shadow at times as well as commentator, using BSL signing. Together they explore the world around them, a world where things aren't always what they seem and where fun can be had in the simplest friendship games, running, jumping, chasing each other and splashing water from a pond. Finally they find a special Yellow egg whose secret, once revealed, means that Ash won't be alone any more!
Daniel Broadhurst's Ash and Donna Mullings' Play work well as a double act where her signing both echoes and complements the piece, and they are both engaging and assured. Highlights of their performance include their peek-a-boo games, the horse ride over the town, and the egg dance! The young children at the matinee I saw loved the comedy moments, but I wished that they had let the audience be more involved, as there were times when Ash addressed us directly but did not wait for, or use, the responses that he got.
Alison Cartledge's set, with its vivid colours, is like the page of a pop-up book, where a series of subtle lighting changes add atmosphere and focus.
The final star of the show is undoubtedly Robert Lee's brilliantly conceived and executed contemporary baroque soundscape, subtle and sensuous at times and at others leading the performers to new delights like the tunes of a hidden Pied Piper.
For those living in Tower Hamlets there is an outreach programme that includes a workshop – but everyone should just go see and share the experience with Ash, Play and a child of your own!
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