Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh and touring 2006

Molly Whuppie. (Photo: Patrick Redmond)

YOU CAN tell this is a show that has been nurtured and loved. Revived by popular acclaim with an enhanced musical score, it is a children’s show rich in wit and invention, barely a line going past without some colourful bit of business or visual gag.

If it sometimes takes longer than it needs to tell a simple fable, the young audience (it’s pitched at the under-sevens, but my nine-year-old loved it) are more than willing to take the journey.

Performed by Kirstin Murray and Ros Sydney, with ever present accompaniment by Mary Macmaster on harp and Gavin Marwick on fiddle, Virginia Radcliffe’s show for Licketyspit is about the plucky Molly and her quest through the dark woods and into the mountains in search for winter food for the annual great feast.

Leaving behind her hungry sister and mother, she discovers a king with unimaginable riches. But to get her share of his wealth, she must take on the formidable giant – Ninian the terrible – on the other side of the perilous Bridge of the One Hair.

All is not what it seems, however, and there are lessons to be learnt about greediness, tyranny and not trusting appearances. These are morals that Molly Whuppie wears lightly, preferring instead to be a playful adventure, with songs to clap along to at every turn and fun to be had at the make-believe silliness of it all.

Murray and Sydney give performances of athletic energy, spinning head-over-heals on Ali MacLaurin’s multipurpose set and switching from role to role so you’d think there was a cast of thousands.

One particularly entertaining sequence involves each crawling repeatedly beneath the other, endlessly transforming the skirt of the first into the headscarf of the second, as the story goes back in time through the generations. It sets the tone for the ingeniousness to follow, most notably in the changing perspectives of the giant’s belongings – vast when picked up by Murray as Molly, tiny when handled by Sydney perching on her vast giant’s feet.

Written by Radcliffe herself, Molly Whuppie has the feel of an age-old fairy story, but with a presentation as fresh as the vegetable’s in Ninian’s mountain garden.

(Molly Whuppie can be seen at Strathpeffer Pavilion, 26-27 March, Boat of Garten Hall, 4 May, and Garrison Theatre, Lerwick, 12-13 May)

© Mark Fisher, 2006

Link

• Licketyspit