BWW Reviews: SWAMP JUICE, Soho Theatre, April 18 2012

When children come along and turn your life upside-down, there's a lot of joy, a lot of stuff that isn't joy and a lot of stuff that's best described as boring. So when you find something that you can enjoy with your kids, it's a delight - but when you find something you enjoy as much as your kids, it's a miracle (or it's a Hayao Miyazaki film). To that short list of gifts to parents, add Swamp Juice (at Soho Theatre until May 5).

Canadian Jeff Achtem has created a show that crackles with wit, seduces with charm and surprises with spectacle, all done with puppets projected as silhouettes on screens from an ingenious wooden frame. It all seems a bit shakey, but such is Jeff's technical mastery of the form that the fragility of the puppets only echoes their fragility in the swamp. Original music weaves in and out of the narrative complementing the stunning images perfectly. The show becomes a parallel telling of the history of cinema from zoetrope to, well, I shan't say - but what a finale!  

Productions like this can teeter along The Edges of collapsing into showy SFX wizardry or whimsical eccentricity unless anchored in a story strong enough to work in any media. The tale of the goblin and the birdie bickering in their swamp meets that standard, beautifully conceived and told. Critically, its telling is enhanced by the puppetry, so enhanced that one almost forgets that they are merely shadows tugging at our heartstrings - until the next stunning innovation pops up. Despite a few scares along the way, all the swamp creatures live happily ever after and, despite a warning about suitability for under 7s, I feel even the smallest of kids will sit as spellbound as the oldest of adults, transfixed until Birdie swims and swims and swims to glorious safety.  

So take the kids, or go yourselves - but do go. Swamp Juice is an unmissable pleasure.

Read more about the show at Bunk Puppets, including tour dates.