Manchester Theatre News & Reviews

REVIEW - Lost and Found has a magical aura, igniting the joy of connection, friendship and imagination - a must watch for all the family!

BOOK TICKETS TO SEE LOST AND FOUND

On Thursday, we visited Aviva Studios, Manchester to see the family show, Lost and Found. Read what our reviewer Karen Ryder had to say about this beautiful show...

What a treat to be invited along to the world premiere stage adaptation of Oliver Jeffers’ awarding winning book Lost and Found at the stunning new venue Aviva Studios. Children fill the venue chattering with excitement, anticipation is in the air, and as you enter the theatre space you are welcomed into a magical new world where large seagull puppets fly around all levels of the venue, teasing unexpected guests. Everyone is included and everyone is willingly immersed and immediately engaged. I even had my programme lifted by a seagull! It made an appearance again later in the play at the lost and found office! It was safely returned to me of course. From the impressive set, full of sea faring details of netting, life boys, shells and rubbish washed up in the ocean, to the large projection of the ocean that dominates the back of the stage, all bathed in a calming blue, there is so much to take in. With this production, the experience begins the second you enter. It is wonderful.

Lost and Found is adapted and directed for stage by BAFTA award winning director Will Brenton (CBeebies, Coronation Street). Will has been able to take the important messages of loneliness, friendship, and kindness from this picture book and add a simple yet heart-warming script. A penguin knocks on a boys door, seemingly lost. The boy is unsure what you’re supposed to do when a penguin turns up at your door, and so tells it to go away. The penguin persists though, and the boy takes the bait, trying to find who the penguin belongs to. He asks everyone he meets if they’ve lost a penguin, but to no prevail, and so he takes it to the lost and found office. No one there has reported a lost penguin either. The boy tries to leave the penguin there, waiting for its owner to come and claim it, but instead, ends up sailing a boat to the south pole to take it home. Parting is harder than it seems though, and we soon discover that the penguin was never lost at all. It was searching for something, and though the boy didn’t realise it at first, so was he. They found that something in each other.

The brilliant set design by Jean Chan is echoed in the costumes worn by the cast, who are dressed in varying shades of blue, with wonderful netting draped around their bodies, each again containing different sea related elements. The impact is inspiring, and perfectly keeps the younger audience in the heart of the story. But this set is like a huge playground, with hidden doors, secret passage ways and nooks and crannies. When the first reveal is done via a curtain to present the boys house, this young audience quite literally gasped in awe and wonderment. The reveals kept coming, with sections of the set opening up entirely to bring out boats, icebergs and a whole variety of exciting possibilities. A mini ramp and slope up and around the back of the stage allowed for cute chase scenes between the penguin and the boy to the delight of the children, and with a wooden fence at the front of the stage, moveable poles across the stage, and a pandoras box for a set, there were also plenty of options for the seagulls to land and perch after a good flit and fly around.

Music has been introduced to the production courtesy of Gruff Rhys. Not only does it have live musicians on stage, with many instruments streamlined into the set itself, but we have songs that know how to engage because all of the children instantly started clapping along and involving themselves in any way they could. The music (and the sound design by Alexandra Faye Braithwaite) cleverly incorporates sounds inspired by the story, such as boatbuilding. The rhythms and sounds of sawing, hammering and such like can be detected and again give an overall connection to the location of the story, fully immersing its audience on every level possible. The final song has hope, heart and sums up the story beautifully.

The puppets are designed by Olly Taylor and vary from the aforementioned seagulls, to mini versions of the penguin and boy, to the penguin costume itself, which is beyond cute! There are combinations of rod puppets, hand puppets and full costumes so there is always a surprise around every corner. The puppets of the penguin and boy are used to help show dimensions, highlighting how small they are to be setting off on such a huge adventure, and their journey across the sea during a storm is beautifully done. The penguin costume is so fluffy and cute, the audience “awed” and fell in love on sight. Lydia Baksh, who brought the penguin to life, somehow managed to inject personality even though we could see no part of her. The penguin was adorable, cheeky, funny and brilliantly paced with movements to understand everything it felt.

Richard Hay was the boy and pitched it perfectly. He managed to engage children and adults alike with his energy, singing, and storytelling. The rest of the cast played various roles, including the seagulls, the lost and found officer, and members of the public. Their work as the seagulls was particularly impressive, even creating convincing sounds, and again managing to inject personality and humour into the puppets. This fantastic cast were Susie Barrett, Gus Barry, Ronan Cullen, Pena Iiyambo, Gemma Khawaja, and Rayo Patel. They pulled the whole show together and didn’t stop working from beginning to end.

This is a gorgeous family show for children of all ages, with plenty of stand out moments to enjoy. After the fun interaction with the seagulls at the start, they fly onto the stage, music kicks in, and they all start bopping their heads along in time. This instantly set the layout out of giggles and fun ahead, and plenty more were to come. The manager in the lost and found shop was a huge puppet with extendable arms and a brilliant quirky personality. The way they made the boat move, whilst clear to adults, filled the children with a sense of magic as I heard many of them trying to figure out how it moved with no water. The building of the boat in the first place invited a tantalizing opportunity for the audience to get involved, and for cast members to run into the audience searching for missing pieces.

Children are invited up onto stage to help build the boat and then to try and move it. Huge inflatable trees descend from above, mirroring those on the screen behind, and this idea is replicated as the penguin and boy create numerous poses during their song, and they are animated on the screen behind them. Lost and Found has a magical aura, igniting the joy of connection, friendship and imagination. It would make a special memory for the whole family, so if you can, go along and watch.