This show is total fun. A happy mixture of rock concert, TV show and storytelling which instantly pulls us into a wild and whacky world, and keeps us there laughing and listening all the way. With an extra touch – half the cast are made up of children from the audience!

A handful of kids have been primed just beforehand to participate in the action and this creates a sense of everyone being involved – the performers have just the right note of friendliness and respect for their young audience. Not something you always sense at a kids show.

There are gadgets here to impress – live video projection introduces us to the young girl picked to operate the changing pictures on the screen, instant photos seem to appear at various moments in the show, an apparent live link to another school comes from a camera pointed into the audience, and the microphones and splashes of colourful lighting take us into rock concert territory.

All these enhance the storytelling, but it is definitely the talent and personalities of the performers that make it such an engaging performance. It was such a blaze of  sound and action that I can’t put names to faces – everyone rocked.

Sharon Keep Ya Hair On is the first and longest story (of three). Jason lives in a shed next door to Sharon and when they get married all is fine until they have first one child, then another, then Sharon’s sister arrives having left her husband and brings her three children, and finally come Jason’s parents and their pet gorilla. All these are member of the audience.

At each new arrival Sharon freaks and Jason calms her down by saying "Sharon keep your hair on," and going off to make the house bigger. Behind them on the screen, cut-outs of the house and its growing number of occupants appear – and disappear as the visitors end up going their different ways.

This is told mostly in song, with fantastic voices, wonderful harmonies and blasts of music as Jace gets into the renovations.  The characters are drawn in the lyrics, so the children playing the parts just have to wear the costume, carry the props and enjoy the experience – though the gorilla had developed a few little moves of his/her own!

Although a story from Australia, the humorous, laid back, can-do, ‘family is family’ feel of this story is very Kiwi too – the kids loved it and so did I.

The other two stories, Prue Theroux the Cool Librarian and Hooray for the Kafe Karaoke, are shorter, with less action and perhaps slightly less appeal than Sharon, but there are more participation opportunities and more funny characters. The children who joined the actors onstage as the Karaoke Choir made the most of their moment – in fact a great time was had by all, as was evident in the excited buzz as the audience left the building.

Thank you to Patch Theatre Company for coming here to share your talent, expertise and enormous sense of fun with us.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer