FOUR STARS

 

It is great to see avant garde theatre company Complicite back in Oxford especially as this latest production is the first show in its 30-year history to be intended for a family audience. Lionboy has been adapted from the novels of Zizou Corder, the pen name used by Louisa Young and her teenage daughter Isabel Adomakoh Young, and after seeing this very interesting show I am keen to read the books also.

The plot of Lionboy is exciting and fast-paced. Young Charlie Ashanti comes home to find his scientist parents abducted by the sinister Corporacy, a powerful pharmaceutical conglomerate, because of their research finds. He finds this out from the local moggies – because Charlie can speak to cats and has done so since he was little. Adetomiwa Edun portrays the eponymous hero convincingly, particularly so in the cat dialogue scenes. The play has a curious dystopian setting, full of lurking dangers and fantastical characters. With the help of various felines, Charlie escapes to seek and, hopefully, rescue his mum and dad. Joining a travelling French circus troupe he is catapulted into even more strange situations and dangers. In pursuit is Rafi Sadler, a teenage low-life hired by the Corporacy — I really enjoyed Robert Gilbert’s performance in this role.

Director Annabel Arden and designer Jon Bausor have come up with interesting ways of telling a big story in intimate confines with flashes of theatrical magic. It is both stylish and stylised. One of the most heartening things I came away with was the realisation that the company trusted the young theatregoers to grasp and deal with the big issues lying beneath the rollocking adventure plot, exotic characters and fantastical situations. This is rare in ‘children’s’ shows, which all too often underestimate their audience — but not this time. Until Saturday 01865 305305, oxfordplayhouse.com