Review: ONCE UPON A WHISPERING WOOD, Theatre Royal Brighton
Photo credit: Simon Way
Once Upon A Whispering Wood is Flock Theatre Makers’ intimate interactive experience for little ones, taking them on a journey through the old building of the Theatre Royal Brighton to discover a secret wood and hear the stories of the trees. Through staircases and secret doors, Fern (Emily Moorman) takes you on a trail-like adventure filled with hidden nature clues and sensory experiences from sound to taste to lead audiences to the forest within the building for the main event and feel a deeper connection to nature every step of the way.
This immersive experience is the perfect way of allowing children to explore their imagination in a new setting. Children’s imaginations really are at the heart of this show, it is incredibly playful and childlike through every element from song to puppetry to wooden toy-esque props to represent the village.
At the performance we attended, the role of Rowan Tree was played by Freya Wynn-Jones, with the role usually being played by Laura Mugridge at other performances. Wynn-Jones brings animated storytelling aplenty to this character through a gentle singing voice, playful puppetry and captivating young audience members through theatrical magic, interactive questions and movement sequences. As well as proving to be an excellent stand-in Rowan, Wynn-Jones is also an active member of the creative team through composition, co-writing and co-directing the show.
The scripted section of the experience brings a wonderful heartwarming story to life about a young boy who grew up surrounded by nature. Watching Once Upon A Whispering Wood is a great festive outing for families with young ones who aren’t old enough to sit through an entire show - an immersive indoor nature trail may seem like an unconventional option for a Christmas day out but it offers a great alternative for families to bond with each other and nature alike, and see a new side to the Theatre Royal Brighton.
It is worth bearing in mind that due to capping the audience size, it can get quite crowded at parts of the trail and the room where the central part of the storytelling is quite a snug fit for everyone to squeeze into. It would have been interesting to explore more interactions between Fern and Rowan, instead the trail section and storytelling section feels quite isolated from each other but this may have been due to constraints with the physical space it was staged in.
The costume and set design by Sophia Lovell Smith is simple yet inventive. Although some areas of the trail are rather sparsely decorated with branches and foliage, the central forest space is transformed by pinecones, branches, fairy lights and plenty of handmade decorations to feel like a magical wonderland of nature. One of the cleverest key props is the wish tree which functions as though it is a repurposed umbrella, opening up to grant everyone’s wishes.
Once Upon A Whispering Wood is a love letter to the forest, planting a new appreciation of nature in young minds.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Heidi Downing