The Christmas Bunny
George Readshaw & Alex Wilson
Music by Eden Treadwell
Half Cut Theatre
Capitol Theatre Horsham
Star rating: 4
This miniature show for the youngest children exudes charm and gentle humour for
every one of its 45 minutes.
The titular bunny has been delivered as a Christmas present to an unseen child
named Charlie. She meets other toys, has adventures with them and longs to be
loved enough to be “real” especially when Charlie moves on a notch and becomes
more sporty – cue for a couple of gentle tennis puns to amuse the adults in the
audience.
Eleanor de Rohan (who alternates with Ellie Bradbury) delights as Bunny, using
every muscle in her face and reaching out to the audience who are required to
practise their lapine attributes, sing songs, throw snowballs and much more. It’s a
warmly inclusive show.
The other half of the two-hander is Eddie Ahrens (alternating with Tom Briggs) who
provides a bossy wooden toy soldier, a growling dinosaur, a coy teddy bear, a
rocking horse and more. His range of voices is impressive and he too is good at
working the audience, especially when he comes out of role to recruit an audience
member to play Nanna. At the performance I saw the man who volunteered, and was
eventually invited on stage, brought his tiny boy with him and it was quite a moment.
And that’s the joy of theatre of this sort. Actors have to be reactive. You never know
what children are going to call out, suggest or do and you have work with whatever
happens. In some ways it’s more demanding than playing Hamlet. De Rohan and
Ahrens both rise to the challenge with cheerful aplomb.
Personally I would have preferred it if the script writers had used grammatical
pronouns rather than the fashionable let’s-show-we’re-woke they/them throughout. And I didn’t care for the voice over narrator but these are minor gripes about very pleasing work.
