Rollicking Entertainment’s Messy Magic Adventurers – Spray (Lizzie Tollemache) and Wipe (David Ladderman) – are back at Circa for the school holidays with Bathtime Bubbles. We first met them in 2017 when their Messy Magic Adventure found the clownish cleaners trying to tidy up a Magician’s house. Last year, Kitchen Chaos! Challenged them to simply (yeah right) bake a cake. Such has been their popularity (playing an adult show in the evenings, too) that they have graduated from Circa Two to Circa One.

Fans will already know Lizzie’s ‘no nonsense’ Spray is the bossy one while David’s amiably goofy Wipe is the always keen-to-please bumbler who thrives on misinterpreting words – e.g. Row A could be any row, eh. This time, while Wipe just wants to have fun, Spray insists that here, on the hallowed Circa mainstage, they must be both flash and serious. Her weak spot, however, is that she just loves bubbles! 

Thus the rollicking entertainment plays out as the ‘unintended consequences’ of trying to obey Spray’s strict rules, subverted by the appearance of bubbles – which the kids love, of course. As a set-up for comedy it works a treat with a bonus of random circus skills also erupting through apparent misadventure.

Another plot-thread involves a bird that was supposed to appear from a hat – after all they do promise ‘magic’ in their title. A few feathers don’t quite fulfil the promise. So when a large Seagull appears aloft (puppeteer, Stevie Hancox-Monk) the kids are wonderfully vocal. It’s a great ‘running gag’ which culminates in (spoiler alert) a big white poo on Wipe’s head, leading to the bath scene and, of course, more bubbles – magic bubbles, what’s more.

Speaking of running gags, we also get chases through the audience – a feat in itself for Wipe while he’s wearing goggles and snorkel, an inflated frog ring and flippers. The lighting, music and sound effects (designed and operated by Molloy) add greatly to the excitement.

A simple set-up earlier, where Spray’s dust-buster turns out to blow instead of suck, has a massive pay-off when she discovers a huge balloon-cum-bubble and wonders how to blow it up. The kids know exactly how! And the sequence that follows – where, shall we say, Spray becomes at one with the big balloon bubble – is a fitting climax to 55 minutes of ingeniously crafted antics and fun.

I suppose the Seagull’s homily at the end is worthy but it feels unnecessary and a bit tacked on to me. But then I’m not exactly the target demographic – although I do always have enormous fun at Rollicking Entertainment’s shows for the young. (And I’m looking forward to The Dunstan Creek Haunting this evening.) 

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