The diminutive puppets and gigantic humans of the Little Angel Theatre turn up the heat with their Tex-Mex rendering of the old giant-killer saga. In it, improvident Jack and his mother scrape a living in a hard landscape, where tumbleweed blows and an isolated caravan is home. Jack has a dream that he will one day ride high on the waves at the surfing paradise of Puerto Escondido, but that’s before he finds himself achieving the dizzy heights by far earthier means.
When they’re not manipulating the tiny puppet Jack, his mother and the bug-eyed cow, puppeteers Nigel Luck and Damon Shaw draw themselves up to their full height to play market traders, the purveyor of beans, as well as Jack’s lofty adversary. The puppet world, designed by Mila Sanders, is an unforgiving sun-scorched, cactus-strewn hinterland.
A portentous opening, in which a lone model car driven by a mysterious stranger crosses the desert landscape, gives way to a more familiar set-up, but with a Mexican zing. Jack and his mother spice their conversation with choice Spanish vocabulary, and in the market, poncho-wearing costers with chilli moustaches man the stalls. In an equally zesty rock ’n’ roll twist the giant of the legend – sporting a glittering jacket and a rather creepy masked head with trademark quiff – is a giant of the music industry. The King is not dead, yet, just fashioning golden eggs into coins and being soothed to sleep by the croonings of a golden guitar. Although they may not understand all the cultural references, children enjoy the combination of hand-made and human performers who layer more humour on to an already familiar tale, even if that giant comes worryingly close to flattening feisty Jack.
