CityLife

In The Shadow Of Trees

AMIDST all the tinsel and glitter of the star-studded pantomimes this year comes a small-scale performance which reminds you about the real magic of innovative theatre.

Horse and Bamboo deservedly won an M.E.N. Drama Award with this show when they first performed it at the Royal Exchange Studio and  now you can see it at The Met in Bury.

The good news is the magic is still there.

Operating on a shoe-string budget, as their name implies, Horse and Bamboo is made up of a band of strolling players who've replaced the horse with a motorised vehicle and the bamboo with card-board cut-outs of brightly painted trees for this story without words but wonderful music.

Kathy Bradley, Chris Davies, Loz Kaye, Johnny Quick and Mark Whittaker are actors, puppeteers and musicians in this enchanting story of a young baby girl, abandoned in the forest, who is reared by the animals and looked after by the spirit of the trees.

We watch her grow up with her friends the squirrels and badgers for company until the intrusion of the outside world in the shape of hunters who try to destroy them.

If this doesn't sound very seasonal, then don't worry because the little forest girl grows up to find happiness and a family of her own.

This story is told without speech but the odd song and a mixture of  music, which seems to weave between English folk and Japanese Kabuki with the wonderful forest noises thrown in for good measure as well as some magical lighting effects.

I cannot praise this production too highly because it surmounts so  many barriers, including language and can be enjoyed at so many different levels.

It's seventy minutes of pure delight.

In The Shadow Of Trees is at Bury Met until Christmas Eve. £5/£7, £20 for a family ticket. Call 0161 761 2216.

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