Todos Teatro (meaning everyone’s theatre in Spanish) took us on a rollercoaster of emotions as we rode into the depths of our imagination.
As we entered the theatre we were greeted by the sounds of the sea accompanied by floating bubbles. Real life bubbles being blown in the air, ahead of us and towards us and given that every toddler loves bubbles, I delighted in observing the reactions of the children as they ran around popping, blowing and dancing with the different sized colourful orbs.
But on to the show.
The story centres around a turtle that has tangled herself with plastic. She is stuck on a sandy beach, unable to swim and surrounded by plastic. The only other inhabitant of the beach is a strange smelling plastic monster (with a fantastic mop of green recycled plastic hair). Soon enough they strike up a friendship and as they get acquainted we witness them masquerading around making funny faces and noises (our toddler was in hysterics over this).
There are very few words in the story which means there is a lot of emphasis on the actors to carry the narrative along with the use of their bodies, gestures and sounds. They do a brilliant job and their passion and warmth radiates through. The actors are the stars of the performance, although they do share the spotlight with one impressive recycled Turtle Puppet that could easily be mistaken for the real deal from a distance.
The rest of the puppets and set design is created from recycled materials and very much in keeping with the environmental theme, they may be simplistic and a little abstract but they are very effective.
We were sucked right into the story and the toddler was so engaged he was even taking turns to explain to the rest of the audience what was happening in the storyline. At 45 minutes in length it means that even very little Londoners can remain engaged in the storytelling without getting too distracted.
The show finished with audience members helping to tidy up the plastic rubbish from the stage and then saying hello to some of the puppets after which we left feeling enlightened, entertained and educated.
Turtles don’t like plastic is the perfect way to start talking about climate change with little ones. More info on upcoming Todos Teatro shows can be found on their website here.