Picture This

Star ratings: Charlie & Lola 3; The Mole... 2; Stick Man 4.

Picture book adaptations dominate the programme for very young children at the Fringe. But given the difficulties involved in translating these short, highly visual stories into full stage shows, the results can be mixed. At best, they take a child’s knowledge of the story from dozens of bedtime readings and translate it into something genuinely theatrical and new. At worst they can feel like a cash-in, adding little to the book and simply tapping into an existing market at the expense of children’s exposure to anything more original.

Particularly vulnerable to this accusation is Charlie and Lola’s Best Bestest Play. Lauren Child’s appealingly retro, cut-out collage creations are now familiar from thousands of books, pencil cases and backpacks, as well as the highly successful CBBC show. Their world is recreated here via excellent use of flat puppets, simple bedroom, kitchen and bathroom sets and various scattered toys. Charlie and Lola themselves are charismatically animated by up to two puppeteers each, who swing the characters’ arms, nod their heads and swap their mouths around for different expressions with dazzling speed and precision. Lola’s funnily precocious language is well conveyed in audio clips recorded by the same child actors as in the TV show.

But the narrative is less compelling. The play consists of a number of stitched-together short stories of the sort that appear in the books and on TV, with no overarching plot to keep flighty attention spans engaged. The attempts to connect directly with the audience, like when we are encouraged to "magic" a kaleidoscope of butterfly shapes down from the ceiling, are fun but few and far between. The mood on the day that I went changed over the course of the hour from one of excitement at seeing the eponymous heroes "for real", through enchantment to no small degree of impatience by the end.

The Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business is similarly problematic and doesn’t have the classy visuals to save it. A low-budget adaptation of the incongruously titled German picture book (a more literal translation is The Mole and the Quest for Whodunnit), it tells the story of a mole who wakes up one morning with a brown, curly mess on his head and determines to work out which animal it came from.

The book is a curious mix of down-to-earth subject matter and slightly twee crayon illustrations, but this production’s crudely painted farmyard backdrop and flung-together costumes are a poor match visually. In attempting to expand the simple story to fill forty-five minutes of stage time, musical company Kipper Tie have given each animal that the mole encounters a distinctive national character and a song to sing, from the operatic Italian pig to the Californian surfer-dude goat. But the underpowered vocal performances and overwritten lyrics mean that a lot of kids seem to miss what’s meant to be going on and the various attempts to get them singing or chanting along fall flat.

Most importantly, the production fails to exploit the appeal of the faecal subject matter itself. When the moment comes for each animal to poo, it moves centre stage, makes a face, and a non-descript twinkly sound signifies that the deed is done. The droppings themselves are made variously of fabric, beads and balls, but aren’t sufficiently meaty or sloppy to convince. Properly done, this show would provoke squeals of delight and disgust from its young audience; as it is, the reaction is mostly one of quiet bemusement.

Far more engaging is Stick Man: Live! in the child-pleasingly bright and cheerful belly of the purple cow. I was sceptical as to how Axel Scheffler’s beautifully detailed illustrations and the character of an anthropomorphic stick could be brought to the stage, but Scamp Theatre rise to the challenge with creativity and wit.

The result is elegantly simple. Five stiff puppets closely resembling the figures in the book are held aloft at various points to represent Stick Man, his "Stick Lady Love" and his three children, while Stick Man is also played by the appropriately lanky and spiky Brian Hargreaves. When something happens to the puppet, we see a voodoo doll-like reaction in Hargreaves’ face and body. The park keeper, dog, little girl and other characters are played with spirit by Naomi Paxton and Mark Kane, with Kane providing live accompaniment on a tree-like percussion kit to the recorded mixture of funky jazz, boogie-woogie and soul that makes up the soundtrack.

There are some beautifully staged moments, like when open blue umbrellas are lifted and spun in formation to create the surging waves that wash Stick Man to shore. The audience interaction is well-judged and a particularly effective technique is to ask children to help them recap on the story so far, much as one would when reading the story aloud. More solemn sections capture the melancholy and frustration of the central character as he tries to get home, which underlies the fun and gives both the book and the play its pathos. If the main challenge of adapting a picture book is striking the balance between faithfulness and effective stagecraft, then Stick Man gets it just right.