LITTLE SHIPS (Thornhill Theatre Space)****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/thornhill-theatre/audio-fringe-ttsfringe2-K7gxudr84GU/

Available until: Unknown

Little Ships is a lovely new musical about a family in wartime. It is one of the audio dramas in Thornhill Theatre Space’s second fringe festival, #TTSFringe2.

It might be quite difficult to stage because some of it is set on the sea, but it works very well as an audio drama and it is very clear what is happening. It is set in the 1940s in wartime, but it’s very different from a lot of wartime stories I’ve read and listened to. Although a lot of bad and sometimes scary things happen, it is generally written in a lighter style with lots of happiness and love.

The book, music and lyrics are all written by Danny McAvoy. The story is set up in a really interesting way which I think works really well. It’s about a group of adult children who go on a very exciting adventure and the play opens with one of the children being interviewed about it many years later in 2020. I think this works very well as it builds up the excitement and makes the story seem more real.

The music is really beautiful and very different from most musicals. It’s really lyrical and gentle. It’s a lot more folky in style than most musicals and it’s lovely to listen to. The music also makes the scary parts of the story a bit less scary so I think it is a really good story for children to listen to. Not all children like typical YA novels with traumatic events happening on every page with everyone betraying each other. This musical proves that it’s possible to write an interesting and exciting story where everyone likes everyone else and I think that’s really important as far too many stories go in the opposite direction. Of course, Little Ships is set during World War II so not everyone is nice, but the main characters are lovely.

There are some things in the story which might not be seen as completely realistic – I won’t go into them here because of spoilers, but I don’t think that matters because it’s right for the almost magical style of the story and I think too much detail and realism would have reduced the magical quality that makes this story special and unique.

While I’m talking about spoilers, it might be better not to read the show notes first. They tell you the whole plot, though you wouldn’t necessarily realise that at first as the characters have different names in the show notes. The main family originally all had traditionally Irish names, but they’ve been changed to more British names. I think that’s a shame because I love Irish names, but I don’t think it ruins the story and as the father is half-French, it makes sense for him to have a name that can be easily-pronounced in a French way.

The cast play their roles well and they also have really good diction, which is especially important for an audio play. James Billington is likeable as Edward, who is a good man but imperfect enough to be human. Vicky Holding brings out Eleanor’s lovely sense of humour. The ‘children’ (played by Lewis Asquith, Nick Pritchard, Anna Jones and Faye Steiger) are good because, although they’re adults now, they do have quite a childlike adventurous outlook which I think will appeal to children because they can identify with them, but it will also appeal to adults who have a childlike outlook or an inner child.

I enjoyed Little Ships a lot and I hope more people listen to it.