Breathe – Pleasance Dome

The creative ingenuity in this show is outstanding. The staging is slick; the voices beautifully melded and the music is perfectly crafted, demonstrating terrific inventive scope for blending human creativity with clever technology in an open and transparent way.

I was enamored of the clicking fingers that translated into rainfall so that the fungi danced to the drum of nature. It was a transition evoking a touch of pixie dust!

Louisa Ashton (co-founder of Sparkle and Dark Theatre Company) is an adept puppeteer and, together with Darcey O’Rourke and Peter Morton, they front this accessible, intelligent and astonishing work.

Breathe is an intriguing journey with a sleepy acorn seed who has to survive the winter. It is full of imagination, multifunctional models and storytelling through sighing, grunting and puffing puppets as well as delightful singing and narration mainly from O’Rourke, but shared with the other performers.

The team who created this fascinating performance numbers more than twenty. I’m not surprised.  A massive amount of background work is required for a piece as beautiful and considered as Breathe.

I had expected an audience of children, but instead, the venue was packed with curious adults. This magical experience is a wonderful way to teach junior school children. For the rest of us, it is a show to marvel at as it reaches into creative innovations not explored before.

Funded by Arts Council England, Gulbenkian Arts Centre and Lab, this show is bookable (and has an accompanying book) through @halfastring.co.uk. I hope many, many people get to enjoy it.

Reviewer: Kathleen Mansfield

Reviewed: 9th August 2024

North West End UK Rating: