For the Court Theatre’s summer children’s show, writer Carl Nixon takes the sparse raw ingredients of the children’s song Puff the Magic Dragon and uses it as a scaffold for a story about pirates, seaside adventure and (here’s the message) believing in yourself and others. The song’s maudlin conclusion acts as set up: Puff is hiding mournfully in a cave as he has lost his mighty roar – to bumbling, villainous pirates who’ve pinched it to use as a key component for a weapon of mass destruction.  

Our human hero, Jackie Paper (Monique Clementson), is a dynamic girl who has just moved to a new seaside town with her distracted, corporate mother. She tries to entertain herself and – after a series of capers featuring a slate of comic characters (played by Sophie Petersen, Bianca Seinafo and Albany Peseta in skilfully rapid rotation) – she finds herself face to face with the mournful, low-status dragon (Peseta, caramel-voiced and operating a large puppet).

This puts her on a threefold mission: to help her new buddy find his voice (and hers, too, in a more metaphorical sense), to get home to mum and to stand her ground against some bullies. This offers the framework for some delightful nautical action and adventure.

One of my pet peeves in theatre for young people is when it looks cheaply tacked together (with sealing wax and string?) but here the creative team, led by director Elsie Edgerton-Till, have paid great care and attention to the look and feel of the show as a holistic entity. The Court’s children’s shows must adapt to the set of the evening show, for good or ill, and here the large sliding vertical panels of the musical Chicago are dressed beautifully with sacking, driftwood and leaves to create a bright and adaptable storybook seaside space. Light, costumes and sound, as well as the large dragon puppet, are thoughtfully constructed.

My favourite moment of the show is the ingenious transformation of the stage into pirate ship for the final action sequence. It’s well-designed, well-executed, and genuinely surprising. 

And yet, I am a little torn. Looking through the stage action itself there is a lot to like about Nixon’s script: it’s clearly localised, it features engaging and funny characters (many of whom are female! Thank you!) and it works towards a nifty resolution. But, there’s a lot going on as it follows its narrative and theatrical formula, and in places it falls into the children’s theatre trap of feeling a little ‘plug-and-play’.

This is a fun show and the vibrant cast succeed in making a connection with the audience, bringing a great deal of warmth and energy to their performances. There are lots of lovely and playful moments, and some strong character work, though at times I wish for a little more precision in vocal technique and physical comedy, and some space for reactions, as the large auditorium and the particular audience can be a challenging and unforgiving combination. 

Looking across the audience, however, it’s obvious that the show is hitting its mark with those it’s written for. There’s a monster alert for particularly sensitive small children, of course. The little boy next to me is nearly weeping at the beginning (and is comforted adorably by his only slightly older brother) but he immediately perks up when he realises that Puff isn’t a real dragon, just a puppet dragon, which is a little paradoxical, when the play also asks the children (in the vein of Peter Pan) to perk Puff up by loudly declaring their belief in the dragons. What does it matter – he’s placated and is happily bouncing around on his seat, roaring along by the end. 

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