R E V I E W S
PANDORA'S BOX
"Pandora's Box
offers a world of over-heated imagination, rather than reality. A Melancholy
onstage band (violin, cello and accordian) wanders through the action, often
competing with electronic beats in Stu Barker's outstanding score."
The Daily Telegraph 28/3/02
"The whirling
gypsy tunes of Stu Barker's on-stage band encapsulate Lulu's inescapable spiral
downwards."
The Independent 7/4/02
THE RED SHOES
"The figures
in vests become potent with symbolic meaning, buoyed up by Stu Barker's eerie
and uplifting music"
The Evening Standard 7/2/01
"A timeless fusion
of folk, samba and rave beats"
The Independent 5/2/01
"It was a breathtaking
ride with incredible music"
The West Briton 2/01
CLOUDLAND
" 'a reminder
that drama for the under-fives is one of the most inventive areas in British
theatre today.' Out one day with his parents in the mountains, Albert climbs
to the highest peak above the clouds, trips, falls off and is saved by the children
who live in the clouds. Travelling Light's latest show, based on John Burningham's
picture book is a real delight for the very young. It is a reminder that drama
for the under-fives is one of the most inventive areas in British theatre today,
helping to rescue the medium from the limitations of the merely text-based.
This show is of particular interest because not only is it pitched just right
for its young audience, but it also works on many levels, conscious and unconscious.
It has most in common with an Improbable Theatre Company show of a few years
back called Coma. This is a story that can be taken at face value, but which
is also as an exploration of a near-death experience, in which Albert falls,
goes to paradise, meets God (in this instance the Queen) and is eventually restored
to his parents through the repetition of "magic" words. Katie Sykes' design
evokes this dream state very well. Your average four-year-old, of course, is
not going to look at it this way at all, and they don't need too. They will
simply enjoy the puppetry, music, clever physical work and a world that is blue-white
as ice but somehow very snuggly and safe. But there is a particularly artful
simplicity at work here: the physical work reminds you of that sense of falling
that you sometimes get as you go to sleep, and Stu Barker's music suggests something
stranger going on beneath its surface jolity. Like all really good theatre,
the show is both what it seems and something more, unsophisticated and very
sophisticated at the same time. It takes real skill and guts to produce work
for children like this. As ever, Travelling Light remain one of the unsung heroes
of theatre today."
Lyn Gardner - The Guardian 8/10/03