Natalie is feeling a little grumpy. After her mum doesn’t quite appreciate her artwork as much as she’d like, Natalie gets a bit hōhā. She takes some deep breaths and goes on an adventure in her imagination.

It’s a wet windy day in Wellington. Roy Iro treats us to a much appreciated pre-show audience warm up. “Are you ready to have some fun?” Yes, we are!

Mia Alonso-Green serves the hero role of Natalie well. Poe Tiare Tararo and Roy Iro play six characters each and the audience, young and older, find them hilarious. 

Asha Barr’s set is reminiscent of the busiest room in the house. Our actors lift and turn different parts to reform it into new worlds with help by Oliver Devlin’s soundscape. The majority of Natalie’s imaginary worlds and characters (costumes by Te Ura Taripo-Hoskins) are created by using household objects- just as my kids do at home.

Songs are lovely (Moana Ete and Awhimai Fraser). Our team has incorporated all three official NZ languages. Te Reo flows into the show as well. James Tito has brought us the Te Reo additions  into Irish-Australian Finegan Kruckemeyer’s script. NZSL doesn’t find its way into the show so much (there’s no NZSL consultant listed). It would be nice to squeeze in some more. 

It’s a shame that the theatre isn’t more kid friendly. My 4.5 year old found it hard to focus on the show because he didn’t weigh enough to keep his seat from closing up with him inside. Also both kids had a little trouble seeing the performers through the adults sitting in front of them. Some booster seats would solve the problem, CNZ!

There’s a lot of text and it’s delivered quickly and clipped. I had some trouble following along but, I was also a little distracted with one hand trying to stop the auditorium seating from eating my son.

The kids liked the show but were a little disappointed with the lack of hōhā. Honestly, Natalie seemed like quite a reasonable and pleasant young woman. My daughter at the end asked if I had mistakenly taken them to the wrong show, “The Happiest Child in the World”. Where was the seismic foot stomping and unintelligible grunting, the huffing and puffing? Mind you, I’m a mother of a child who once got so grumpy on a bushwalk that the ranger turned up in his hilux to see if we needed rescuing.

Dev Rama (aged 4.5):

The girl lived with her family. She drew a picture. On it was a lion and the whole world that she wanted to go to. The girl went into the cupboard. It was like a door to another world. The guy said, “don’t go in”. The lion roared. The bird was saying “we have the same watch”. I liked the giant and the girl having a race.

Luna Rama (aged 7):

The show was about a grumpy child and she drew a picture of a town called Grumpland and she wanted to be the queen of it if it was real. Then she wanted to go on an adventure so she packed a bag and told her mum and dad. She went into a wardrobe and through a magic portal into Grumpland. Seh had friends with a giant and a bird and a lion and this big hair lady. My favourite thing was when she went through the magic portal. She wasnt that grumpy, she was happy most of the show. 

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Finegan Kruckemeyer is a prolifically successful playwright. In 2022 alone, 38 productions of his plays were staged in six countries. An Irish kid who moved to Australia, Kruckemeyer is now writing for a global audience. And this show has echoes of tales from other places; the world found in the back of a wardrobe and the child who gathers companions including a talking lion. However, Capital E’s national tour fluidly interweaves te reo Māori, courtesy of James Tito, locating us firmly in Aotearoa.

We start on a high, warmly welcomed with waiata that deftly incorporates NZSL. We get to meet the actors before they shift into character. This may be useful for younger tamariki who might not have encountered the conventions of theatre before, and it also establishes the language of a piece in which telling and pretending are both childlike and sophisticated.

Natalie Briddling is seven and, according to her Mum, “a world class grump”. What is she so grumpy about? To adult eyes her parents seem warm hearted, reasonable folk, but Mum really isn’t seeing the genius of Natalie’s latest chalk drawing. In it, Queen Natalie totes a laser enhanced crown and is adored by her subjects; it should clearly be in a gallery not just stuck on the fridge.

Natalie’s problem, according to her “Science Person” – a mixture of internal voice and narrator in a white coat – is that Briddling is middling, 1000% average with an every-girl face. She yearns to have “a smidgen of amazing” and so the scene is set for a quest into imaginary worlds. She departs through the wardrobe, or in this case a kitchen cupboard, with a pīkau and a muesli bar.

What follows is a fast-paced journey through multiple locations and encounters conjured from the contents of the kitchen / laundry. Natalie is swept along an awa of sheets to meet a giant in a cave. In a city she encounters a girl with hair so long she tucks it in her socks. Below a desert of cacti there live a race of tiny people.

Rather than being amazed by these extraordinary beings, Natalie thinks only to impress them with her own uniqueness – “See how small I am giant!” – and in each case she is thwarted. The long haired girl shares her exact birthday, the giant is delighted to see they have the same watch, even the same ringtone, and ALL the little people under the cactus are called Natalie. The uniqueness she craves is not even to be found in imaginary lands.

This presents Mia Alonso–Green with, what seems to me, a tough challenge for an actor. In a traditional quest the heroine usually progresses through trial and adversity by virtue of her courage, wisdom, determination and even wily humour. Natalie goes from feeling hōhā about the giant and their watch, to maximum grumpiness by the time she reaches her final destination, Grump Town. That may be needed for the story arc, but it’s a tricky act to hold our engagement and sympathy for Natalie through this ever-increasing frustration. Mia’s performance balances recharged determination to counter the sullen defeats and there is a welcome and tender moment of song in the middle of the journey that re-connects us with her vulnerability and hope.

Meanwhile, a host of other characters keep the audience engaged. We first meet Poe Tiare Tararo as Natalie’s busy Mum, comfortable enough to indulge her runaway quest, confidently knowing she’ll be back in time for shepherd’s pie. The story romps along at such a pace that the cast sometimes have just a line or two to skilfully sketch a character. Of Poe’s many roles, it is her gentle, funny giant I would have liked to have spent more stage time with. It’s a treat.

Roy Iro is Natalie’s Dad, a smiling, slightly absent-minded presence, looking for his coffee mug. He brings a big-hearted warmth to each character, including the huge fanged lion of Grump Town and even the echoing void of the perilous cave. The audience (school performances are aimed at ākonga 5 years and up) never has cause for real fear.

Once at Grump Town Natalie finally gets the approbation she seeks, out-grumping the grumpy natives. In this she is supported by her posse of accumulated friends, each using their unique talents. Finally she is Queen of somewhere. Like Dorothy returning to Kansas, the new friends morph back into whānau and our quest is complete.

Awhimai Fraser’s direction is confident, tight and pacey. It needs to be. There is a lot of content in this story, a lot of ideas and information for a young audience to take in. Awhima and directorial collaborator Moana Ete have also produced fresh musical content for their cast of strong harmonic singers. The run time of the show may already be challenging for younger tamariki, but the musical moments bookending the show bring a real swell of energy.  They leave me wanting more and wondering whether song could play a role in some of the wordier sections of the text.

The staging is swift and clever. Asha Barr’s compact and ingenious design runs with the concept of Natalie’s chalk drawing world, expanded across the domestic furnishings. Locations are simultaneously rearranged and sketched with vivid childlike haste.

Te Ura Taripo-Hoskins’ costume design emphasises the middling Briddling world. Natalie, clad in coffee-coloured dungarees, lives in a palette of neutral tones. The fantastical, when it comes, comes not in sudden splashes of colour or explosions of light but in the transformation of commonplace items; two steam irons become giant mice. A giant bird flies on feather duster wings. The power lies in the usage and the telling, but not entirely.

Oliver Devlin lends the imagination a hand with rich soundscapes and few high profile cues – notably the tiny chorus of cactus dwellers and the great blasts of grumpiness in the final Grump Town show down.

The questions that linger with me after the show are unconnected with the quality of this strong production. They are with the text. I realise that I’ve really warmed to Hirsute, the Giant and the little cactus people.  On meeting a stranger, they celebrate what they have in common, what connects them. They aren’t concerned with establishing their uniqueness. I have seen the show with my own kids, who have no desire to be monarchs of anywhere, or become Insta influencers. In a time of growing youth anxiety about isolation and self-image I am left pondering the social skills and value of connection, and the cultural aspirations of uniqueness. Which is the greater challenge for our children now, standing out or fitting in?

A playful kitchen sink quest for uniqueness, The Grumpiest Child in the World is on tour for the next seven weeks playing a mix of schools and theatre venues. The luckiest audiences will be those who see at their kura. It’s a show that will thrive in more intimate and lively spaces, where the cast and audience will really bounce off each other.

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