It’s a great idea: take a boy called Jack and a cow called Daisy and set them off on a quest that recalls the well-known exploits all those Jacks, and the odd cow, in nursery rhymes and folk tales. A Well and a Plum Pie Bakery, upstage right and left, give us a clue where we’re heading. And downstage right, a crammed bookshelf and comfy chair await the storyteller …

Some odd choices are made along the way, however, by writer /director Aaron Blackledge. For example, when the Storyteller – Tom Truss – asks the young audience what their favourite stories are, he shows no interest in getting answers. Instead he launches into ‘The Tale of the Naughty Audience Members’ which, while being a novel way of covering off the ‘housekeeping’ information, puts a bit of a dampener on further participation.

What’s missed, here, is the opportunity to canvass the children’s knowledge – and that of their accompanying adults – of stories involving a boy called Jack and turn the discovery of those elements into a rewarding game as the play proceeds.

The set-up is that Jack (Brandt Feeney) and Daisy (Caryll Illana) have heard that KKT Circus is holding open auditions. Daisy is keen but Jack is uncertain, causing both his Mum (Becky Burrows) and Daisy to establish the play’s oft-repeated message: “You can do anything if you believe in yourself and work hard enough.”

While the singing is tentative at first they soon warm up, and movement and dancing skills turn out to be a strong point. Whenever Jack and Daisy travel, the Storyteller describes a vast range of movement styles and transport options which get the duo inventively active: nimble and quick, you might say.

The song and dance they audition with, for the Circus master (Truss) involves Jack jumping over a candlestick. But the Landlady (voiced by Harriet Dawson) is demanding the unpaid rent by sunset and the Circus Master remembers some story about magic beans, a beanstalk and a goose that lays golden eggs … The instructions are in a scroll.

When water is needed to make the beanstalk grow and the well is way up a steep hill, a well-equipped rock-climber called Jill (Burrows) turns up to help. Is it too pedantic of me to note that one of the modes of transport they’ve just used is a helicopter? Anyway, despite his breaking the crown of his helmet, Jack gets the water.

Next, a plum is needed. The French Baker (Truss) has baked all his plums in a pie and cannot buy more until he has sold it … Jack employs his thumb like a good boy and – thanks to three magic words gleaned from the audience – the beanstalk grows, evoked with impressive sound and lighting effects (Blackledge), which also manifest the Giant (voiced by Bruno Shirley) in scary silhouette.

The Goose (Burrows) is friendly enough and wants to help but once the Giant gets a whiff of them, Jack and Daisy are in mortal danger and have to be hidden. And here I go being pedantic again: doesn’t the Goose calling a child up onto the stage to vouch for the fact there is no-one there put that very child in mortal danger too?  

My other gripe is that the way the all-important golden eggs are handled – especially the one Jack and Daisy get to use to save the circus in the nick of time – does not endow them with the requisite importance and value. This and the fact that the beanstalk cannot be felled by an axe but requires another song and dance (as generic and unmemorable as those that have gone before), severely dilutes the play’s dramatic climax.  

A healthy dose of dramaturgical support and directorial mentoring could bring The Marvellous Adventure of Jack and Daisy up to its potential (if Blackledge believes in it and works hard enough). Meanwhile it is lively and inventive enough to entertain its target audience and send them home wanting to play at play-making themselves.

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