The Adventure (Manchester)

Imagination is the basis of most playground games. Exploiting this fact, and the willingness of children to join in, the Bad Physics Theatre Company and writer Oliver Birch devise a refreshingly original entertainment for young people.

In the foyer of The Royal Exchange Theatre, a group of children are enduring – sorry, enjoying – a particularly lo-tech rendition of the story of Noah’s Ark by the bad-tempered Simon Wren. Mr. Wren’s skills at making balloon animals are so inept that every creature, we are told, is either a snake or a worm. Three distraught children mercifully interrupt this storytelling. They explain that their father has been kidnapped and hidden somewhere in the building but they need help deciphering clues to find his location. Would we be willing to help?

The clues are of a nature (based on nursery rhythms and so on) that it is possible for children to solve with minimal adult input. The tasks undertaken by the audience are both funny and fun – desperately dressing up and assuming the pose of manikins to hide from an approaching security guard. There is even the occasional educational element; as a human chain forms to allow the passage of an electric current you can hear one youngster whisper "we did this at school".

The Adventure gives children the chance to be part of a gang and to show off. Complete audience involvement is achieved with apparent ease. There is no danger of even the shyest child feeling left out. The group is regularly divided, with members sent on mini-adventures to find missing pieces of equipment that have suddenly become essential. So absolute is the level of participation that the audience occasionally steals the show from the Company members. When Simon Wren declares that he has found a clue, he is contradicted by an outraged cry of "I found it!"

This interactive mystery is full of the sort of diversions that delight children – darkened rooms, unexpected noises and the chance to shout your head off. The only point at which young attention drifts is when the villain is uncovered and explains his plot in a lengthy speech. But the audience is easily won back loving the opportunity to take part in a blast of destruction that brings this fine show to a rousing conclusion.

The Adventure is at the Royal Exchange until 21 December.

– Dave Cunningham