The Animals and Children Took to the Streets

Welcome to the wicked world of the Bayou. It is a place of scabies and rabies, of skeletons and infected wounds, of underwear thieves and 21-year-old grannies, a place where the brothels are “filled with pubic lice and city bankers”. The setting for The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, the dark imaginary dystopia of the Bayou, will make you suspect your own shadow.

In this latest production from British theatre company 1927, the group concocts the most surreal of fairy tales, combining animation, cabaret, music hall song, dry humour and contemporary issues to brilliant effect. This follows on from their internationally successful 2008 show Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, for which they picked up numerous awards including 2007 Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award and two nominations for 2008 New York Drama Desk industry awards.

The Animals and Children Took to the Streets will take you to the tenement block of the Bayou Mansions where the children are raised on “vodka, borsch and tears”. With squalid streets filled with peeping toms and shady characters, it seems things could hardly get worse for Agnes Eaves. But when a beast goes on the loose in the Bayou, the dark tale becomes all the more sadistic and Agnes must get help to find her daughter in the most unlikely of places.

With ghoulish white makeup, Suzanne Andrade, Esme Appleton and Lillian Henley are a small but highly talented cast of the innovative production. Their performances are impeccable and each wholeheartedly commits to their eccentric and distorted characters. In an amazing technical feat, the actors have perfectly synchronised the live music and their performances with the animations of Paul Bill Barritt, which are projected on the three-screen set behind them.

In her other roles as writer and director of the production Andrade is to be commended for creating a production which is not only visually stunning but is also engaging for its entirety. While the group has drawn comparisons to Tim Burton and David Lynch, 1927’s black humoured tale of The Animal and Children Took to the Streets is a truly unforgettable production and deserves acclaim of its own. Monica Connors