'A World Elsewhere' review — this wildly inventive family show is built on pure imagination

Read our review of A World Elsewhere, now in performances at Shakespeare's Globe to 30 August.

Summary

• Family show A World Elsewhere plays at Shakespeare's Globe
• The production mixes Shakespeare references with child-friendly audience participation
• The excellent cast includes Tanvi Virmani and Kerry Frampton

How do you introduce Shakespeare to children without staging a Shakespeare play? That’s the challenge Kerry Frampton and Ben Hales take on in their third family show for the Globe, A World Elsewhere – and I’d guess many of the little ones in the audience won’t leave much wiser. That’s not to say the production isn’t a hoot. This is a wildly inventive adventure complete with smoking trapdoors, enormous menacing puppets, and plenty of audience participation. And what child doesn’t love that?

We’re welcomed into the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse by three figures from 11-year-old Cass’s imagination. First there’s Sarah (also played by Frampton), who embodies everything a traditional Shakespearean actor should be – Cass’s gran is a devoted Shakespeare fan, after all. Then there’s Cobweb (a brilliantly cartoonish Tanvi Virmani), one of the largely forgotten fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Finally, there’s Big Guy (Zachary Willis) because, well, this is Cass’s head, and he wanted him there. Together they have the feel of the characters from Inside Out, spinning stories filled with battles, blazing fires and hard-won happy endings.

But today Cass (Kyle Ndukuba) arrives subdued, far from ready to play. What’s happened? And what are those strange black hands that seem to be tearing his head in two? Remarkably, these questions keep the children in the audience – most of whom look under 10 – utterly captivated throughout the one-hour-50-minute running time.

That’s all the more impressive because the plot of A World Elsewhere can be bewildering. Something happening in the real world begins to intrude on Cass’s imagination, causing his companions to mysteriously disappear. It falls to Cass – with plenty of help from the audience – to rescue them. Along the way he encounters Shakespearean characters including Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a heartbroken Romeo at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, though their stories have been stripped of their original stakes and substantially rewritten.

For an audience unlikely to know the plots of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, that creative licence hardly matters, and much of what it means will probably go straight over their heads. Still, somehow they’re carried along – mostly – for the ride.

It’s all down to the skill of the actors, who create a room where children feel free to call out their wildest suggestions. At one point, the whole audience begs Cass to break into song for no apparent reason. They supply the cast with jokes and curious facts, and even volunteer to become blobs of jelly on a plate when asked. This is a show built on pure imagination, and the crowd are delighted to play their part.

It looks wonderful, too. Rose Revitt’s set is covered in children’s drawings, ropes and secret hideaways. Even if the writing occasionally loses its way, this is a world that young audiences will be more than happy to get lost in.

A World Elsewhere is at Shakespeare's Globe to 30 August.

Photo credit: A World Elsewhere (Photos by Manuel Harlan)