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This slightly random but thoroughly enjoyable storytelling show for ages three to six is essentially a vehicle for the storytelling prowess of the charismatic Jan Blake. Dressed in a vaguely druidic robe, she meets the audience out in the Polka’s common area and leads us into the Adventure Theatre, which is tricked out like a small wooded amphitheatre. There, she begins to weave a selection of animal-centric yarns.
In all honesty the show feels a tiny bit thrown together: the name ‘In the Winter Wood’ suggests something explicitly seasonal, but the stories are all over the shop – the final tale, an entertaining Jamaican yarn about an alarmingly greedy cat, has a fleeting mention of snow at the start, presumably in an effort to justify its place here. The show could be a slightly more cohesive, slightly more wintry, maybe even slightly woodier experience, is what I’m saying.
But its components are top quality, as Blake – abetted by Silver Sepp’s nifty sound design, and a series of intriguingly odd musical instruments – rattles off stories of refugee goats and possums afraid to cross rivers, all with a booming cheer that frequently crystallises into chant or even something close to rap. She holds the little ’uns rapt, and there’s a decent amount of low-level audience interaction, with the highlight for the assembled tots surely the invitation to don a cardboard wolf mask and have a jolly good howl.