Pass the Parcel

An office full of lost and unclaimed parcels is a fascinating place to base a Christmas show for children. And the post office clerks, Paper Brown (Nico Brown), Boolo (Louis Lovett) and Mrs Marble (Frances Kay) make excellent use of music, rhyme and song, as they playfully describe the sizes, shapes and characters of the mysterious boxes that rise from floor to ceiling in their dusty old office in the Ark Theatre. But the real mystery only unfolds when senior clerk, Mrs Marble tells a story about what happened to N÷el , a former clerk who broke the golden rule and opened a parcel.

You see, N÷el finds herself in the South Pole, where she barely escapes falling into a crevasse. That N÷el was never seen again terrifies the junior clerks, Boolo and Paper. Yet, they cannot resist the temptation to open a parcel. In it, they find scarves, necklaces of flowers and other exotica, which become the props for their visits to a tropical island and a village in India.

The child audience willingly participates in these flights of fancy, becoming penguins, palm trees or guests at the village feast, as the occasion demands. And although the children didn't seem to mind that the clerks weren't punished for breaking the golden rule (often, getting off scot-free after getting up to mischief themselves, I expect), I felt the story lost momentum at this point which it never truly regained.

After visits from two Spanish dancers and a musician (each show features special guests), the show ends on a peculiar note, with the discovery of a baby in one of the boxes. Overall, Pass the Parcel is an imaginative, playful show, which engages children very well. But the script needed a little more tweaking before the show went up.

Public performances from Thursday, Dec 27th - Sunday, Dec 30th, at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.; and from Wednesday, January 2nd - Sunday, January 6th, at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.; for 4 -7 year olds, Tel: 01 6707788