In this new musical, spawned by the children’s book from Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, we are led into an enchanting woodland world by Jay, who is so overcome by nerves on her first day at school that she forgets her name and is on a mission to find it.
Some of the poetry of the book is incorporated into Matt Borgatti’s charming script but it is Mary Erskine and Will Dollard’s music that leads the drama. The actors are musicians, too, and the drums, saxophone, guitar, bass and banjo become characters in their own right. In Andy Barry’s production, the instruments are on stage before the actors enter and they embody the sights and sounds of the natural world: the bass becomes a swaying tree in one moment and the drum kit resembles a woodpecker’s unruly racket.
