THE 2024 theatre season gets up and running next week, with Forbes Masson’s solo performance of Jekyll & Hyde at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, and Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma’s Macbeth at the Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston.
However, before it all kicks off, let’s consider an excellent production for children aged three to seven that appeared on the Christmas schedule and is set to re-emerge during the coming year.
Ginger is a brilliant show by the acclaimed (and excellently named), Edinburgh-based puppet and visual theatre company Tortoise in a Nutshell. The delightful premise of the piece is that we, the theatregoers, are the live audience for the TV baking show named after its (obviously) red-haired host, Ginger.
Both Ginger and her studio kitchen are the epitome of 1950s-style American glamour (and why not?). Indeed, as in the Fifties, her telly programme appears to be going out live.
Nevertheless, there’s nothing 1950s about the show’s chosen parlance, which is up-to-the-minute in terms of gender politics. Our celebrity baker isn’t making gingerbread “men” (no matter how much the very vocal children in the audience insist that she is).
No, no, she’s making gingerbread “people”. Although that’s where Ginger’s political correctness stops.
When the biscuit persons come out of the oven, she finds one of them misshapen. Rather than embracing the difference, the baker puts the imperfect edible straight into the bin.
This is far from the end of the matter, however. As Ginger is about to discover, her real troubles have only just begun.
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Our host (played by the fabulously funny and energetic Kerry Cleland) attempts to maintain an aura of televisual unflappability. As she does so, the discarded and aggrieved gingerbread person escapes from the trash to wreak merry havoc in her kitchen.
Ginger goes to the oven and (courtesy of some smart shadow puppetry) the little critter is there. The baker turns her back, and the escaped biscuit is doing circus tricks over here or dancing over there.
All of which is, of course, cause for a raucous screamathon among the young audience members, who are only too keen to tell Ginger where the mischievous comestible has got to and what it’s up to.
This is carefully created mayhem. As Cleland dashes around the set trying to maintain a semblance of order, unseen puppeteer Ella MacKay is busily manufacturing chaos.
The set and props themselves are also stars of the show. From the disco fridge to anthropomorphised kitchen utensils (including a bottle opener ballerina) Katy Rae Wilson’s ingenious design is a gift that keeps on giving.
The show boasts a nicely varied musical score, with songs and tunes to suit the ever-changing action. Ginger’s handling of an apparently scorching hot baking tray without using oven gloves creates a continuity issue.
But who cares when this 35-minute show is this much fun, and with a further 25 minutes of participatory gingerbread decorating to come?
Ginger is set to be performed in various venues in Scotland later in the year. Find out more here.
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