This weekend I was lucky to be back the Lowry Theatre, Salford, this time, up in their cozy Studio space to see Dizzy O’Dare’s ‘The Giant Balloon Show’. As per usual the staff at the theatre were friendly and helpful, with a few more stewards around to guide young families in navigating their way to the tucked away Aldridge Studio Theatre.
A one man show by performer Dizzy O’Dare, this show is available for all types of venues and events with it’s easy to set up balloon cart and audio being controlled by O’Dare himself while on stage via a remote and ipod. The simplicity of the show was charming, one man able to entertain a large audience of children sat in seats was impressive.
Dizzy O’Dares ‘The Giant Balloon Show’ was a show with a lot of audience interaction and several creative feats with balloons, including the promised grand finale of the Giant Balloon act. O’Darehad young helpers on stage and taking part is small dance/comedy sketches, for family audiences this was obviously a highlight seeing their little ones join the act under the spotlight. O’Dare has astrong confidence and appropriate manner interacting with children, he makes for a wonderful children’s entertainer.
I especially admired how O’Dare structured the response to a balloon popping, a whistle was given to an adult in the audience and he was instructed to blow the whistle when a balloon popped and the audience responded by shouting ‘okay’. As many children are sensitive, especially to surprising popping sounds, this training dispersed the tension around the scenario of surprise popping and I saw it take immediate effect on a child next to me who had previously been worried about balloons exploding, he immediately relaxed after a trial or two and enjoyed the rest of the show. O’Dare proved his mastery of child crowd control with this endearing act.
Though O’Dare was engaging to watch there were several moments that he was visibly out of breath because of the physical numbers in the piece, as a theatre performance I would expect a performer to be of a certain fitness level or able to hide their tiredness from the audience.
For a balloon show I had expected a few more sketches filled with balloon modelling, there was a fun moment when a young girl from the audience was decorated with balloons and turned into a bumble bee to cries of excitement from the audience, I had hoped for more of this type of ballooning.
The finale of the show O’Dare climbing inside of a giant red balloon and animating it so danced and leapt into the air was a visually stunning moment, but I did have a pang of worry over safety. O’Darewas unable to see the audience and leaping around inside the balloon was unaware of the child he had instructed to come onto the stage to take photos with a balloon camera, the child excitedly ran forward at the sight of the dancing red balloon but luckily stopped at the stage edge. If O’Dare had had an assistant they could have acted as the look-out while he was inside the balloon.
Overall an enjoyable afternoon of fun for young families and a soundtrack of fun eighties hits for adults to tap their feet to. O’Dare has created a show that is an all-rounder of entertainment for children and adults.
Reviewer - Kerry Ely
on - 5/5/19
No comments:
Post a Comment