This delicate and delightful piece of theatre is the latest from Swansea’s Grand Ambition team, and the first for a younger audience. But that’s not to say there isn’t plenty for humans of all ages to enjoy. Set in a beautiful back garden, framed by an overhanging tree and garden shed, the gentle procession of days is marked by three actors who unfold a multilayered story of loss and hope.
Grandad, played by Phyl Harris as the archetypal dadcu of Swansea families, is effortlessly humorous and capable of turning on a blade of grass from comic to cathartic. Our nameless narrator (Ella Peel) has the perfect stillness of presence to bring the young audience into the action through her engaging looks and childlike wonder.
Luke Bailey completes the trio with light relief – and great vocal work – as the birds, slugs and snails who hinder Grandad in his attempts to cultivate his vegetable plot. Bailey also gets a chance to bring some emotional impact as a human character in the musical’s moving final third.
But for the children in the Grand’s studio space, it’s Hop himself who steals the show. Peel manipulates the wonderfully elegant hare puppet as he springs around the garden, gleefully munching on the vegetable bed’s bounty and then panting in fear as Grandad stages his hilarious midnight stakeouts. The room was full of wide eyes and adoring smiles whenever the hare took to the stage.
With words from Michelle McTernan, and music from Steve Balsamo and John Quirk, the standard of the material is high throughout, never losing sight of the target audience or moving too far from the bucolic undercurrent.
Presenting loss and estrangement to a young audience is no small feat. Hop – The Hopeful Hare achieves this through a simple tale of hope that tells us how accepting the challenges of change, in a garden, as in life, will help us to grow.
Hop – The Hopeful Hare, Grand Theatre, Swansea, Thurs 5 Mar
On until Fri 13 Mar. Tickets: £10/£6. Info: here
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES photos KIRSTEN MCTERNAN
