CHILDREN’S SHOWS

Chores

Assembly George Square Gardens (Venue 3), until 28 August

JJJJ

A pair of young, pre-vocal toddlers played by adult actors are instructed to clean their room, and what unfolds is a work of elegant simplicity which offers that often-touted but elusive Fringe promise of something enjoyable for all ages. The scenario and the pair’s movements are simple and bold enough to be entirely clear to those in the audience who are the same age as their characters, while parents and elder carers are thrilled by the best of the circus and clowning skills on display.

Set-pieces include one sequence where a performer scales a tottering series of building blocks which spell the show’s name, by using the leaning and apparently sleeping figure of their sibling as a ladder, and then a bit of simple comedy from their effort to replace the blocks in the right order as a tentful of pre-schoolers yell at them to put the letters the right way round. Similar acrobatic set-pieces are sparing, but they’re done with breath-taking skill and elegance.

Australian company Hoopla Clique’s amiable show offers a whole load of playful slapstick fun, which their young crowd laps up despite the intense summer heat in the Piccolo tent, an obstacle which the performers navigate with a deceptive intensity of performance. The pair swing each other around the tent, get in an amusing muddle with their cuddly toys, and get started with some real fun when the leaf-blowers with toilet roll-firing attachments come out.

The silly, messy play of young children and the farcical comedy such an audience responds to are all strongly emphasised, while the graft and hard physical work needed to make the most impressive set-pieces work is carefully disguised within the performances. Still, for audience and surely performers alike, the moment where bottles of water are sprayed over the front few rows and each other must come as a cooling relief.

DAVID POLLOCK