Writer: Julia Donaldson
Director: Mark Cane
Stick Man, now playing at the York Theatre Royal, was originally written as a children’s book in 2008 by former Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, and is a light-hearted starter, teaser and warm up to the upcoming panto season. It has all the hall marks of a standard panto with some very bad puns, jokes and the traditional “he’s behind you” gag all aimed at an audience of under 6s, which on this early evening showing filled at least half of the auditorium. The other half of the auditorium was filled with adults trying their best to wrangle the little ones and keep them entertained and silent when attention spans got short.
The information given out by the York Theatre Royal press office indicated that this was a show “packed full of puppetry, songs, live music and funky moves”, so your reviewer was expecting a much more family friendly version of something like Avenue Q, without all the bad language and adult only content. The puppetry consisted of one sock puppet swan, the songs totalled 2, and the music for the most part was on a soundtrack accompanied occasionally by the live performance of Ben William-Jones who added sound effects, and some decent saxophone playing, to the antics of Stick Man, played by Aeron-Louis Cadogan, and his Stick Lady Love, played by Rosie Maloan, as the 3 very talented and energetic actors brought to life the mis-adventures of Stick Man with enthusiasm, reality and a few funky moves.
The interactions with all the young audience members by the cast was very much appreciated if the increase in cheers, screams and overall noise level during the beach ball scene was any indication.
The real magic of this show is the colourful lighting design, the simplicity of the set and the way in which some fairly basic objects were used artfully by the cast to create the parlous locations that Stick Man has to travel through to get back to his family tree in time for Christmas. Manipulated by the cast, some cut out fish shapes, wrapped in aluminium foil and mounted on sticks, become the schools of fish in the river Stick Man has been tossed into after encountering a very naughty young girl. Large spinning umbrellas become a turbulent ocean and a large sheet decorated with seashells becomes a towering sandcastle on the beach Stick Man washes ashore on and then somehow manages to be rescued by none other than Father Christmas.
With the help of Father Christmas, and his faithful red nosed reindeer, Stick Man makes it back to his family tree and is reunited with his Stick Lady Love and his stick children 3.
A happy ending to a classic children’s story and worth bringing the little ones to.
Runs until 8th November 2023
