Lost & Found

Based on Oliver Jeffers’ acclaimed picture books about a boy’s burgeoning friendship with a penguin, Lost and Found starts small, with the wonder of The Boy (Tom Power) discovering a ball under a box, and ends big, as he rows across the ocean, in a delightful puppetry sequence, to bring his new penguin buddy back to the South Pole.

Power’s Boy is an appealing figure, wide eyed and willing to share discoveries with his comfortably cross-legged audience of three to five-year-olds, plus parents.

Here, small gestures count for more, a slowly stacked set of sea blue-painted boxes becoming “a tower!” to the intuitive gaze of a small girl beside me. I hadn’t realised what it was, and I’m glad I was sitting next to the resident expert.

The penguin’s comic arrival draws hooting laughter from the kids, although Derek Elwood’s priceless goggle-eyed expression and orange nose proved too much for one little boy, who made a swift exit stage left with his mother.

Children’s theatre is at its strongest when it allows its young audience to make the leap of imagination for itself. Polka Theatre’s and Travelling Light’s two-man show, charmingly directed by Sally Cookson, has mastered this concept artfully.

– Vicky Ellis