The Misadventures of Pinocchio: The Radical Robot Girl!
The Misadventures of Pinocchio: The Radical Robot Girl! - The Bohemians Theatre Company
I always feel obliged to mention in the header of these blogs that people sometimes see Cardiff Theatre Review and think, for some crazy reason, that I write theatre reviews. Which obviously I do to an extent, but they tend to delve into the realms of being a somewhat creative response, so if you are disappointed by the lack of certain reviewing conventions in this article please take this as your excuse and your apology all in one.
An email landed in a little-known inbox of mine a few days ago asking me if I’d like to pop round to the Sherman and review a show. I recognised some of the names attached to the project as some people I’d worked with before and knew they were all flipping lovely so I thought to myself why not, it might be nice, maybe I’ll write a little puff piece and go about my day. Oh Danny of little faith.
I am now sat here trying to write a true objective review and it’s reading as puff because of how much I enjoyed it.
I had done very little research into what I was seeing as I have the journalistic integrity of Heat magazine. I had quietly suspected that it might be traditional ‘family theatre’, whatever that is, so I entered expecting to be subjected to a very ‘specific’ type of theatre. When I wandered into the Sherman studio to see a cohort of performers gathered around playing music for a cute wee toddler who was standing at the edge of the stage, which may be one of the sweetest things I've witnessed just generally, quite immediately I realized this was something special.
‘The Misadventures of Pinocchio: The Radical Robot Girl!’ is an updated retelling of the story of Pinocchio taking the base elements of the traditional story but adapting it to make it more contemporary and sprinkling some new flavors in, all done live by the cohort as they transform into a variety of characters to take us on the journey of Pinocchio, a Robot going out to find something they thought they could no longer have.
This show is really, really funny. It takes a lot to make me actually laugh in a theatre, like really laugh and I was laughing loads. The care that was taken in ensuring that the little prop gags littered throughout the show worked down to some of the choreography just being really funny was so refreshing. Whilst it’s clear the show is playing for a younger audience it managed to strike that rare balance of tapping into a form of silly that’s universally loved.
They kept pulling things out of the bag. I write a lot here about shows missing ‘magic moments’, things that are just there to be fun, and you really couldn't move for them in this show which is so refreshing. Usually any show over an hour makes me want to cry but this kept me pretty engaged through the show, this is especially impressive as I have the attention span of a toddler.
After I left I found myself turning to my friend and having to ask them if I was in a really good mood that day or was the show just really bloody lovely. They helpfully confirmed I hadn’t been spiked and we had seen something excellent.
I struggle sometimes on this blog when I write reviews if I really like something, it absolutely reads like I have been slipped a tenner to gush about things. I want to write more about the lovely design, the lighting, the direction, but I think you get the point that I thought it was really well done.
Sometimes the stars align and a bunch of excellent creatives and an excellent design team match up and something really great happens, this is one of those times.
