Robert Alan Evans . Playwright
  • News
  • Contact
  • Work
    • 3-7 >
      • Crumble's Search for Christmas
      • The Night Before Christmas
      • Mr Snow
      • Rudolf
    • 7+ >
      • Little Red
      • The Sleeping Beauties
      • Peter Pan
      • Tiger & Tiger Tale
      • Caged
      • Pinocchio
    • 10+ >
      • When I Lie To You Do You Love Me More?
      • The Voice Thief
      • Kes
      • Mikey and Addie
      • Pondlife
      • Kappa
      • Pobby & Dingan
    • 14-death >
      • The Woods
      • The Cracks
      • Beautiful Cosmos
      • A Girl in a Car with a Man
      • Aruba
      • Fish Story
      • Ignition
      • The Dark
  • Future

Mark Fisher review - Pobby and Dingan

24/3/2010

0 Comments

 
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 03, 2010Pobby and Dingan, theatre review

Published in Northings

Pobby and Dingan 
Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, 27 February 2010, and touring)


IT TAKES a while to warm to this adaptation of Ben Rice's novel. For one thing, there doesn't seem to be much at stake: just an everyday family hoping to get lucky in Lighting Ridge, an opal mining town in the Australian outback. For another, the production by Catherine Wheels takes a straight-forward approach that rules out the kind of imaginative leaps that children's theatre does best. The initial impression of Gill Robertson's staging is of a routine domestic drama.

All the same, you sense something is going on. Apart from the father (Damien Warren-Smith) with his Elvis fixation and conviction that untold wealth is just a day away, and apart from the mother (Ros Sydney) trying to keep order in a household with little money and a broken washing machine, and apart from Ashmol (Scott Turnbull), their son, zipping round town on his bike, there is the question of daughter Kellyanne (Ashley Smith).

Although the least vocal of the four, she is the most intriguing, because everywhere she goes she is accompanied by her two imaginary friends, Pobby and Dingan.

On the stage, Kellyanne's belief in the reality of these two characters is no less preposterous than our belief in the invisible food the mother puts on the table or the motionless journey Ashmol takes on his bike. One of the most touching aspects of Rice's tale, adapted by Rob Evans, is the willingness of the whole town to indulge in the little girl's fantasy. It is as if they recognise that her imagination offers an escape from the hard-bitten reality of their mining town that is so persuasively evoked by the play's incidental details.

But Pobby and Dingan goes further than that. Contrary to expectations, there is an awful lot at stake. This is a play about nothing less than childhood illness and death. It is about the way we can use the imagination not only to make sense of the world, as all children do, but also to come to terms with life's greatest traumas.

We take the play at face value when it treats the mysterious disappearance of Pobby and Dingan as a surreal and whimsical comedy, but all the while it is preparing us for us for the weightier events ahead.

Along the way it demonstrates the importance of community, ritual and shared belief as the townsfolk put aside their petty antagonisms and stand together in recognition of what is truly important. From its innocuous beginnings, Pobby and Dingan matures into a profoundly moving play, low on sentiment and high on good humour, that will leave you sobbing for the loss of more than just your invisible friends.

Pobby and Dingan is at The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, on 20 March, and Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, on 22-23 March 2010.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    Amazon Button (via NiftyButtons.com)

    Archives

    November 2020
    September 2019
    August 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    August 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    July 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    August 2016
    March 2016
    October 2015
    May 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    February 2012
    December 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    February 2009
    July 2008
    May 2008
    March 2008
    November 2007

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • News
  • Contact
  • Work
    • 3-7 >
      • Crumble's Search for Christmas
      • The Night Before Christmas
      • Mr Snow
      • Rudolf
    • 7+ >
      • Little Red
      • The Sleeping Beauties
      • Peter Pan
      • Tiger & Tiger Tale
      • Caged
      • Pinocchio
    • 10+ >
      • When I Lie To You Do You Love Me More?
      • The Voice Thief
      • Kes
      • Mikey and Addie
      • Pondlife
      • Kappa
      • Pobby & Dingan
    • 14-death >
      • The Woods
      • The Cracks
      • Beautiful Cosmos
      • A Girl in a Car with a Man
      • Aruba
      • Fish Story
      • Ignition
      • The Dark
  • Future