The Egg is the cutest little theatre designed with children in mind and during it’s construction children’s ideas were taken and actually used in the final plan; the mirrored ceiling in the foyer for instance which, on this occasion reflected perfectly the sparkling and much adorned Christmas tree quirkily upside down, not only is fun but gives a good illusion of space.
The stage is set in the round and for the story of Heidi (as told to us by four wild and giddy goats) it was the picture of Alpine prettiness. It’s all in the title but even so the goats were a wonderful surprise; the costumes are fantastic, curly woolly onesies topped by extravagant headdress and goatee beard and bottomed by bobbing tail and large cloven hooves, the latter being used to great effect in the clog dance sequence. Angela Bain, John Biddle, Hannah Emanuel and Tom Wainwright as Mether, Teather, Tan and Yan, respectively have escaped from their goatherd Pip, and take full advantage to roam through the audience, bleating nervously into anybody’s ear they can find and causing much amusement.
Pip rounds up all the goats and confines them to the barn which they hate, in the melee she drops her favourite book (Heidi), and as they goats catch the swirling pages, naturally they eat them and then being "magiculated" (goat-speak) they find they can tell the story to amuse themselves. Told in this way, the story is a wonderfully entertaining and highly inventive piece of pantomime with some hilarious sequences and you certainly don’t have to be a child to appreciate it!
Caroline Horton as Heidi is perfect; she has a naturally innocent young face and is truly believable as the little orphan girl, first sent to be looked after by her grandfather in the mountains which she loves and then wrenched away by her aunt and sent to Frankfurt to be a companion to wheelchair-bound child, Clara. Clara is brought to life by a clever piece of puppetry manipulated by Hannah Emanuel as Tan.
Seamas H. Carey, roosting at the top of the barn as a cockerel provides most of the musical interludes; multi-talented he can play all sorts of instruments, as can the other actors hiding under their goaty disguises. This is an excellent production, full of visual slapstick, ingenious special effects (a torrent of ping-pong balls become an avalanche of snow) and there is no time for any tiny tots to be bored - only the goats are allowed to do and say this!
We loved it; the children loved it and we shall look upon goats in a new light from now on thanks to the endeavours of their human imitators!
Jacquie Vowles