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A frosty fable with a heartwarming message of care and conservation.Summary
Rating
Good
The King’s Polar Bear at Half Moon Theatre is a lovely wintry entertainment for families with children aged 4+. A colourful and participatory piece, it tells a sparkly, musical tale whilst encouraging the audience to change the world. The story explores ideas of climate change, animal welfare and plastic pollution alongside the power we have as humans to both destroy and to make positive change, if we all work together.
At the frozen pole at the top of the Earth a polar bear lives happily on the ice amongst the other arctic creatures. When two greedy Kings see how awesome he is they capture him and put him in a circus for their own pleasure. Time goes past and he sees a changing world through his window, as humans exploit the environment. Trees are lost and the world becomes dirty and damaged. He finally escapes and, missing his wonder, the two rulers come to realise the damage they are causing, deciding it’s not too late to change things.
The trio of performers work beautifully to make the audience feel at home in the icy wastes, poetically describing the frozen landscape, before introducing us to the star of the show – a beautiful puppet polar bear – to the delight of the young audience. In fact, they use a variety of puppets throughout; the bear also appears in miniature glove puppet form, and we also see shoals of fish and a friendly pigeon in a variety of global locations.
The bear is visually lovely, so it would be nice to see him invested with a little more characterisation in the script to round out his appeal. The story itself feels a little patchy in places, with time passing in quite odd blocks, which must make the polar bear decades old come the end. However, the overall message is sound, and it is fun to see the children in the audience encouraged to participate, with windmills, wave power and generating electricity with wind up lamps, guided gently by the three friendly performers.
The set is impressively flexible, suggesting ice floes and icebergs. There are fun surprises in hidden compartments, revealing a coral reef, or taking us under the ice, innovatively using blue light for an eerie glow, and the young audience particularly loved the sparkle and snow flurries. The icy set is easily converted to a circus tent with the production of brightly coloured bunting, and there’s also some quirky use of props, with scrolls reimagined as binoculars. It’s great stuff that could also be reimagined in home play after the show.
The highlights are, of course, the lovely musical numbers, which bring energy and thoughtfulness to the whole production. The score by composer Rebecca Applin is varied and interesting, providing opportunities for the audience to join in and clap along, and the songs, used to help deliver the story, are delivered with excellent, precision harmonies by the enthusiastic cast.
This is a lovely hour of music and visual delight, with a message of hope for youngsters. It may be frosty up in the Arctic, but the story of The King’s Polar Bear will warm everybody’s hearts!
Produced by: Full House Theatre Company
Composed by: Rebecca Applin
The King’s Polar Bear plays at Half Moon Theatre until 23 November. before further dates at Manchester and Luton. Further details and dates can be found here.
