Real-life love story... with surround sound

The Gray Cat and The Flounder Quirky cartoon romance ★★★✩✩

BERNAdETTE Callery (aka The Gray Cat) was a librarian at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, working with her husband Joseph Newcomer (The Flounder) to create a delightful cartoon series.

The Gray Cat and the Flounder featured more than 4,000 images chronicling their life together, and this unusual production by PNME Theatre of Music and Civil disobedience is an offbeat musical homage to the couple’s quirky, real-life love story.

It is a family show capturing the spirit of adventure and fun that characterised the series, in which the cat is a librarian perfectionist and the flounder likes to draw.

However, it is also about Callery and Newcomer’s partnership as soulmates for more than 46 years until her death from ovarian cancer in 2012.

The production combines actors, musicians, animation, puppetry and binaural audio technology whereby the audience wears headphones for an intimate, surround-sound experience.

And the technology is matched by an equally impressive live score by composer Steven Foster, with a mini orchestra on stage and some very fine singing. An affectionate look at not treating life too seriously.

Assembly George Square until Aug 22