A simple, visually engaging puppetry show at an early stage of its development, with a climate emergency theme and loads of potentialSummary
Rating
Good!
As part of Little Angel Theatre’s summer family puppetry festival, The Tortoise and the Firefly is a new production, aimed at children aged 3 to 8, written, designed and directed by Gisela Mulindwa. This marks the culmination of Mulindwa’s 2024/25 design traineeship at the theatre, and the 40-minute, three-hander has the air of a work-in-progress and is an evolving piece likely to benefit from audience feedback during its brief three-day run.
Inspired by African folklore traditions – particularly tales featuring tortoises – this original story introduces a stubborn, slightly grumpy yet ultimately misunderstood tortoise living contentedly beneath a giant tree near Lake Victoria. But when a severe drought strikes, Tortoise must venture out in search of food and water. Along the way, he discovers a firefly living inside his shell. Despite initial conflict, the two slowly begin to cooperate, eventually working together to summon the much-needed rain under a relentlessly scorching sun.
The production is framed by a live, foley-style soundscape created on stage by Sound Designer and Musician Esther Kehinde Ajayi. Using live sampling and mixing, Ajayi adds a dynamic presence to the piece. Visually, the show combines string and shadow puppetry (featuring animals such as elephants and giraffes) with engaging, overhead projector-style projected backdrops depicting landscapes like volcanoes and arid plateaus – all within a contained booth setup. A standout design element is the beautifully textured and expressive tortoise puppet. Another notable moment occurs during a swamp scene, where imagined predatory eyes add a welcome touch of tension. The show experiments with scale and perspective, though this felt underdeveloped and ripe for further exploration.
Performers Hannah Akhalu (as Tortoise) and Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong (as Firefly) deliver clear, charming storytelling, maintaining a calm and playful rapport with the audience. However, like much of the production, whether in its sound design or direction, the overall tone feels too gentle. While the audience wasn’t disengaged, moments of restlessness suggested a need for more jeopardy, energy, and emotional stakes. The piece would benefit from greater dynamic contrast: let us hear more of the soundtrack, feel the tension between characters, and experience the joy and triumph of learning how to conjure rain. After all, this is a cautionary tale about climate change and environmental fragility, particularly in the African context. We want to feel that community, friendship and cooperation are a good thing, and through working together, change for the better can happen.
Work which is Global Majority-originated (on this occasion from an African/Afro-Caribbean diaspora), exploring new stories being told by a 100% Black company on stage is still, unfortunately, often too rare in the genre of theatre for young audiences, in puppetry, even rarer still. The Tortoise and the Firefly is a thoughtful and much-needed addition to the canon: a developing gem with great potential. One hopes it will continue to evolve and find further life through future development and wider exposure across the UK.
Written, Designed & Directed by Gisela Mulindwa
Sound Design by Esther Kehinde Ajayi
You can read more about the show and the Children’s Puppet Festival here.
The Tortoise & The Firefly has finished its run at Little Angel
but the puppet festival continues until Sunday 31 August.
