OUTDOOR CHILDREN'S THEATRE REVIEW: Secret Summer - Dunwood Park, Shaw. Oldham.

Presented by Sheffield-based Stand And Be Counted Theatre Company in conjunction with Oldham's Coliseum Theatre, this was an outdoor promenade production for children.

Sadly, the rainy British weather notwithstanding, this event proved to be something of a wet blanket. There were several reasons for my saying this, which I hope to clarify as I write. My first concern with this "event" is that it relied far too heavily on modern technology. This theatrical experience should have been just that... a theatrical experience, and yet, instead, parents and young children found themselves encumbered with having to wear earphones and listen to pre-recorded dialogue on their own mobile phones at each of the 'stations' along the route. There was no interaction or live action of any sort, and so they could easily have stayed at home and listened to this whilst watching a computer screen show a few pertinent images. The "live" part of the show was a complete waste of time. I was rather hoping / imagining that actors dressed in animal costumes might have been at each 'station' and improvised conversations with the youngsters, or played games with them, or taken them to the next station to meet the next woodland animal etc.. but of course, no such thing happened. The people employed to man each 'station' were not actors at all; when in fact they should have been in the same mode as summer school animators. Furthermore, the voices were were given to listen to were at times sadly unintelligible and had no relevance to Oldham and the children who were listening to them. The voices were young people - children - from Stand And Be Counted theatre workshops in Sheffield, and therefore these youngsters spoke in Sheffield dialect and accents, and their stories were not brought to life listening to them in a park on the outskirts of Oldham. If these narratives had to be used, instead of using live actors, then why not have Oldham children invent their stories and have them speak these stories about the environment and the animals who live in the parks.. this would have had more relevance and the children would have been be able to accept it more readily. As a theatre company however, I would have thought that teaching children to think for themselves, improvise and interact with the world and people around them, and build their confidence with their surroundings etc would have been of paramount importance, and in relying on technology and having them introvertly listen to these dialogues is the exact opposite of what the ethos of the company seems to be. Further, I was confused as to what age group this company were aiming this walk at. Each station had been decorated with pictures of animals (drawn by the youngsters from Sheffield... why not Oldham??!) and other artificial animals etc as well as a 'game' to play, but these decorations - as well as having a strip of paper stamped and given a colourful sticker at each 'station - seemed to be geared for the 5- 6 year olds - pretty but impractical; whilst the dialogue on the phone-app was certainly not suitable for that age and would be more appropriate for 10 year olds. I know that both my niece (9 years old) and my nephew (12 years old) would have scoffed heartily at this set-up and left after the first station

Admittedly each station offered an 'activity' or 'game' for the children to play, [Connect Four, chalk pavement drawing, throwing beanbags into a hole etc], but due to the rain and bad weather, none of the activities were suitable. There was one station that was completely unmanned which offered hoola-hoops for them, but they were sitting in the mud and no-one wanted to play with a dirty hoop! Each station was far too similar to the next, and so we knew exactly what to expect before we arrived, and at 45 minutes to simply complete the route and listen to all the dialogues, without even doing any of the activities offered at each station was perhaps too long. It was also very disappointing to find that the route for this event was in one long line. Why could this have not been made into a circular tour? Once at the end we had to walk the entire route in reverse to return to our car! If the stalls had been closer together, and more (and more varied) activities offered for different age ranges then it would have made more of an impact. There was little or nothing to do in inclement weather. 

Very uninspiring.

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 27.8.23