Gold in the Water review: Ridiculous fun and puns, plus deeper meaning, in this new family musical

GOLD IN THE WATER

Project Arts Centre, Dublin

★★★★☆

Harvey (Domhnall Herdman) feels like a fish out of water when a goldfish appears on his doorstep. Harvey isn’t sure how he should take care of it, and his husband, Bart (Matthew Malone), insists he hasn’t a clue. Their friends Tom (Oliver Flitcroft) and Sandra (Rachel O’Byrne) are too busy tending to their quadruplets to help, and any advice their other pal Deirdre (Kate Gilmore) offers has disastrous consequences. The misanthropic pet-shop owner (Clare Barrett), meanwhile, has no faith that the couple can keep their goldfish alive. What will the men do when faced with this challenge of care? Will they sink or will they swim?

Gold in the Water, this new full-length family musical from Shane O’Reilly with Paul Curley, builds a bottom-up metaphor for modern parenting that older children and adults alike will find full of ridiculous fun and puns, as well as deeper meaning. Denis Clohessy’s score is catchy and original, delivered by the ensemble with sincerity in songs of emotional revelation, but it is the satirical numbers that are surely the most memorable. A chorus of domestic creatures at the pet shop, including a cockatoo, a terrapin, a rabbit and a mouse, adds a rich subplot, with a musical theme called Pick Me. This comes to a peak in the second half of the show, with the young Bart (Harley Cullen Walsh) harmonising an extended version of the song that encapsulates the musical’s main themes of self-acceptance and resilience.

There are important issues of representation being raised here, too, but the writers are clever enough to ensure that our focus is on the concrete realities of character, action and spectacle rather than abstracted sociopolitical agendas.

Stylish stage design from Maree Kearns sets a four-strong live band on raised podiums that evoke glittery black top hats, with truckle platforms that slide in and out of the stage’s centrepiece to create the drama’s different locations. Catherine Fay’s costumes pop with vibrant patterns and colours, and the animal attire in particular is brilliantly realised. Director Ronan Phelan keeps the cast and the varying moods of the scenes moving fluidly across the stage, while Philip Connaughton choreographs some energetic dance intervals.

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If Gold in the Water feels a little too long for a piece of children’s theatre – with some judicious edits to the songs the two-hour show could be effectively clipped to a neater 90 minutes – the visual stimulation of Phelan’s staging is enough to keep young viewers engaged until the end. This is a feat that parents congratulating themselves, like the characters on stage, for their ability to keep their kids alive, will appreciate like a precious gem fished from a river.

Gold in the Water runs at Project Arts Centre, Dublin 2, until Sunday, March 26th