The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch @ Henley Fringe Festival

Lillie: ‘Daddy’s hungrier than Mr Grinley today!’

Every year The Henley Fringe Festival brings a whole host of great theatre to the fancy pants Oxfordshire town which gave us posh stuff like Boris Johnson and regattas. There’s all sorts of grown up shows including comedy, drama and satire from emerging theatre companies, most working on very limited budgets. But grown up theatre is of no interest to us - it’s long and has difficult words in it.

So instead we got ourselves an invite to the Henley Rugby Club to watch a performance of FalconGrange Production’s adaptation of Ronda and David Armitage’s The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch.

A two man show starring Daniel Creasey as Mr Grinling and Yvie Magee as his wife (supported by violinist Carole Carpenter and a host of fantastic puppets), The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch follows the story of an always hungry Lighthouse Keeper and his wife’s attempts to stop seagulls from eating his lunch. The lunch, it should be noted, is sent via a line stretching from home to lighthouse, tempting seagulls with its airborne yumminess. Why Mr Grinling can’t take a lunchbox in the morning like a normal person we don’t know and neither do the kids seem to care.

With cushions and mats spread across the floor, kids are invited to get up close and personal with the performance, lazing on the same level as the actors as the performance takes place. While some of the audience merrily rolled and raced around the room others - Lil and Ted included - sat entranced by the story and the enthusiasm of the actors who really embraced their roles and kept up a level of energy which caused Mummy to feel slightly out of breath by the end even though she’d done little else other than sit quietly with a cup of coffee.

At little more than half an hour the show was the ideal length for small children - though advertised as being suitable for ages 3-8 much younger kids in the audience seemed to enjoy it with Ted (who never sits still) even managing to maintain interest - and both Magee and Creasey, veterans of the children’s theatre circuit, connected with their mini audience in a way which suggests that perhaps they haven’t yet forgotten what it’s like to be kids themselves. Can we keep them in our understairs cupboard to be brought out on difficult parenting days? Please?

www.falcongrange.com