Cats and dogs reign on stage: Furry friends provide two of the best shows for the holidays

 
 
 

Our four-legged furry friends provide two of the best shows for the Christmas holidays.

Lionboy, which is starting a national tour at the Tricycle in Kilburn, is the first major children’s show by the masters of charity shop couture and theatrical invention, Complicite theatre company.

But snapping at their heels is 101 Dalmatians in Bristol, directed by Sally Cookson — who has established a formidable reputation as a purveyor of similarly ingenious performance.

Swashbuckling: Lionboy (a big warm Martins Imhangbe) starts with Charlie discovering his scientist parents have been abducted

Complicite’s highly orchestrated movement is a perfect match for Zizou Corder’s novel, which is a swashbuckling odyssey of sci-fi Victoriana.

The story starts with Charlie the Lionboy (a big warm Martins Imhangbe) discovering his scientist parents have been abducted.

Thanks to an incident when he was very young he can speak cat, and learns from one moggy where Mum and Dad may have been taken — only to get press-ganged onto a pirate circus ship.

The fun is all in the telling: the characters around Charlie seem to spring from his imagination, with bodies entwining to become the moving silhouette of a lion.

A menagerie of terrific characters include Lisa Kerr as Charlie’s chameleon friend, while Stephen Hiscock’s startling drumming creates drama and drive.

Meanwhile, in Bristol, there may have been a shortage of Dalmatian stuffed toys pre-Christmas — they’re all down at the Tobacco Factory for Cookson’s improvised version of Dodie Smith’s 101 Dalmatians.

Mostly it’s the stuffed silent pups on display, but one battery-powered yapper somersaults centre stage, to the delight of the audience.

In Bristol, there may have been a shortage of Dalmatian stuffed toys pre-Christmas — they’re all down at the Tobacco Factory

Mummy and daddy dogs Pongo and Perdita are real-life actors — he sporting a spotty bow-tie, she in a black polka dot dress. They give each other a good sniff in Regents Park before frisky offspring run wild.

And after their abduction, they are saved by a herd of cows, featuring a mooing panto dame supervising a line of pink rubber gloves representing udders.

Benji Bower’s cracking score mixes lobby Muzak with wah-wah chase numbers, and there’s a Shirley Bassey-style show stopper for Cruella De Vil, in which Carla Mendonca basks in the audience’s hisses. The cast roll and cavort, and although the actors are all old enough to know better, thank goodness they don’t show it.