Christmas and Beyond: Family Show at AVIVA Studios
From 12th December 2023 to 6th January 2024, Factory International presents the theatre premiere of Oliver Jeffers’ bestseller Lost and Found at AVIVA studios, in a stage adaptation by Will Brenton.
Upon your arrival, the friendly Factory International team will meet, guide and entertain you at the venue. Before the play, everyone receives a free brochure which teaches children how to draw a penguin and tells you about the main characters, organisers and this creative space.
Lost and Found is definitely worth watching with the whole family! It is a touching and colourful story of friendship, courage and kindness, enriched with humour and interactivity.
Will Brenton’s staging very accurately captures the fundamental features of Oliver Jeffers’ iconic book: namely, its simple and clear language and vivid watercolour imagery. The puppets for this play were created by Jonathan Saville and Olly Taylor, and their design, mechanics and stage image are meticulously thought out. Also, the penguin’s recognisable and realistic movements, performed by Lydia Baksh, give the story an especially comic and charming effect, making the audience alternately burst into laughter or sad sighs.
The minimalistic design of the stage, so well perceived by children’s minds, is thought out by the creators with the highest professionalism and hides a lot of cute details and funny mise-en-scene. The audience can pick out a number of different techniques: puppet theatre, live music, animation, and even a few tricks leading to the disappearance of objects in the depths of a bottomless suitcase.
Jean Chan’s sets and costumes embody an absolute harmony between realistic scenery and fairytale conceptuality. On the one hand, we see the tiny details of traditional fishermen’s uniforms, fragments of sea nets, and pieces of rubbish washed ashore, which convey the image of a half-abandoned harbour from real life. At the same time, spectators can also admire also some fantastic creatures in the style of Tim Burton’s or Michel Gondry’s characters. Nevertheless, the eye is not distracted by the patchy minutiae, but always observes the main action and the principal characters harmoniously existing in their strange reality. Mysterious watercolour lighting by Jay Morjaria completes this magical world.
The experimental music by Gruff Rhys is as catchy as the Disney songs, and a pleasant bonus for music lovers will be watching the vocalists and musicians perform live on stage: the audience can spot a violin, guitar, ukulele, and even a hidden drum kit.
All in all, each member of the creative team is an artistic star with impressive awards, achievements and, most importantly, a unique gift which they share generously with us.
Not only is the plot itself dynamic, there are also interactive game inserts to keep little audience members engaged. In particular, children are asked to help the heroes directly on the stage – and those who do are given a small souvenir. Here children become creators and participants in the story, and they will definitely be very proud of themselves.
All spectators, from first-time theatregoers to veterans, will genuinely enjoy watching Lost and Found. Fans will recognise all the iconic images from the book brought to life on stage, while at the same time watching a new story, as if they are being initiated into further information that not everyone knows about.You can also look at the play from a philosophical point of view. The very title sounds mysterious and has many meanings. Actually, both heroes were lost and lonely, looking for their place in the world, and overcoming obstacles on the way… so that in the end, when they achieved what they were striving for, they paradoxically realised that they had not been lost at all, but had been in the right place, at the right time, and with the right friends from the very beginning. Thus they found themselves.
Tickets for Lost and Found are available online
