Aharrr!  Parents beware!  This be a typical tale of treasure-hunting, with suitable shanties, that will probably make your little bilge-rats eager to quit kindergarten and head for the high seas.

The story is penned by Dan Ashworth, who also takes to the stage to introduce and conclude the play as salty sea-dog Cap’n Snapper.  This alone is a bravura performance, played with a hint of madness, ancient mariner-style.  Ashworth’s script is true to generic pirate lore, a simple tale of rival pirates in search of a lost treasure guarded by a mythical monster.

The rival pirates, Cap’n Squid (Phil Darkins) and Fearless Fenella (Liz Kirkman), double as mother- and father-figures to brainy buccaneer Kala (Jill Meek) and accidental stowaway/cabin boy Jim (Danny Battershill), which no doubt aids accessibility for under-fives but doesn’t really extend the story by way of subtext – probably a good thing.  It’s a fun ride that doesn’t need a whole lot of morals and messages weighing it down.

The language is delicious, full of tongue-twisting and swarthy oaths.  There’s a lot of dialogue, and probably about fifty percent will just go in one ear and out the other for most kids, but no matter, it’s great pantomime ham and is delivered with relish by the cast with many swashbuckling sword-flourishes in accompaniment.  On the day I attended, most of the audience was from the IHC childcare centre and they were caught up in the tone of the piece, interjecting the occasional ‘Aharrrr!’ from the stalls.

Of the cast, the standout performance is Kirkman as the Pirate Queen.  Bold and beautiful, and displaying some quite impressive sword-handling skills, she commands the stage with ease from her very first appearance hiding on Cap’n Squid’s poopdeck.  Darkins also performs with strength and vigor as Squid, playing up the ‘stupid dad’ element of the character with impeccable timing.  Both show a seasoned pantomime sensibility, with Kirkman especially keeping an even keel through physically demanding slapstick and hammy dialogue alike.

The younger cast fare less successfully, although very well cast for appearance and physicality.  Meek defies her last name in the role of Kala, playing with all the spunk and petulance required by the character, but her vocal skills are not quite equal to the task.  We lose a lot of her text and therefore much of her character.  Battershill plays the quintessential cabin boy in ‘Jim-lad’, a geeky, earnest foil to the flamboyant pirate family, but he falls into the young performer’s trap of straining his lines, becoming red-faced and difficult to follow.  At times his background activity onstage also distracts from the main action.

Matt Clayton delights as the lisping, vegetarian Gitakombinajamokavanakraka, at once the most straightforward slapstick performance in the show and the character with the most genre-busting, referential humour.  Clayton gets it just right, standing out as ‘other’ in the tight ensemble but without breaking the boundaries of the show’s world.

The song and dance numbers are robustly piratical and artfully constructed, blending shanties of old with modern pop numbers to create perfectly suitable new material, played live by a stripy-shirted and ‘kerchiefed Carey McDonald.  Frith Horan’s choreography is sprightly and well-executed by the cast, although a couple of slapstick moments fall flat here and there.

The lighting is more or less inconsequential, and the set pretty awful, but director Rodney Bane has obviously concentrated on the action and performance, and in the end this proves more than enough to keep us engaged with the story.

Finally, the cast manage the audience participation component of the show with aplomb.  The moments are well chosen, the communication is clear, and the pace of the show is not compromised by the audience’s involvement.  It is this, on top of a fun and fanciful show, which suggests that Kapital Kids Theatre is a name we can associate with quality.

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