The Tragical Life Of Cheeseboy continues the very dark tradition of shows in this year’s Festival programme.

Given it’s for three year olds through to adults, I did wonder how the younger audience members would react to things like being asked if Cheeseboy, being made of cheese, was a cannibal if he went and ate cheese himself.

This was followed by an explanation that human beings who eat meat aren’t cannibals because it’s different meat.

While I didn’t especially like the show, partly because I never warmed to either the narrator or the story, some of the youngsters there just about clapped their hands off. And ultimately they are the audience that counts.
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Whimsical and off-beat shows are becoming a common feature at this year’s International Arts Festival and The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy which opened this weekend at Capital E is no exception, the only difference being that it is a play for children.

But Sheehan’s laid back narrative style fails to gain any momentum or create any drawing power as a good storyteller should. One of the group has been quoted as saying the production is “soft, not in-your-face” which it certainly isn’t. That may well be why it appeals to its target market of younger viewers. The 14 year old accompanying this Reviewer said the Cheeseboy was a “cool” show, the coming-of-age story was intriguing and that the inventive effects greatly enhanced the story, which probably means the approach taken this production has worked.
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It’s a whimsical tale quaintly told in a Victorian* sideshow tent by a dapper gent called Slingsby Bethel (Stephen Sheehan) with his mute assistant Humph (Sam McMahon). Apparently it was passed down from exotic climes in Eastern Europe …

Cheeseboy is made of cheese and lives with his cheesy parents in a cheesy house on a cheesy planet, but when it becomes a fondu and catches fire, its his love of playing pirates, despite his parent’s disapproval, in a lightly tethered boat floating in space, that saves him.

He floats to earth and embarks on a quest to build a new home they can all live in, when his parents find him. In the process he stops the moon creating the tides that destroy his sand castles then, in the endless day that follows, teams up with an astronomer and astrologer in their gypsy caravan, melding their search for the moon with his for his parents.  

He also discovers that eating cheese (not cannibalistic when it’s a different kind of cheese, like humans eating different kinds of meat) allows him to fly, higher and higher …

Eventually the moon is recommissioned (on its usual month tenancy) but instead of finding his parents – who have in fact made it to another part of this planet – Cheeseboy grows up. He builds high-rises now, still hoping to house his family in one of his million assorted rooms … until a final feed of cheese sees him float to oblivion.

It’s not a spoiler to summarise the tale because it’s told in a quaint verbal style and illustrated in ingenious ways that may well inspire the creativity of its young audience. Boots on fingers, buckets of sand, suitcases containing lit-up models and storybook projections held on a napkin, a screen or gliding above on the tent-like canopy we sit within, all contribute to the experience.  

The performers require and acquire an attentive hush within which to delicately deliver their tale. Sheehan’s style is relaxed and replete with subtle cadences, although his singing voice is rather timid.

Just two things puzzle me. They separate the children from the adults, which is fair enough, then proceed to totally ignore all but youngsters on the floor and in the front row, despite claiming they – Slingsby (the production company) – make “captivating theatre pieces for young audiences and adults alike”. Yet they charge – or the Festival does – the adults nearly twice the child ticket price. 

It also carries an age recommendation of 9+ and I can’t see why (I’d read it to a 4 year-old), unless experience has told them younger children get restless, while the older group has learned to ‘behave’ in the theatre. My 12 year-old guest said it was OK but I felt singularly unengaged by both the content, which I objectively recognise as a rite of passage story, and the presentation.

Given the awards The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy has won in Australia, I think we can rest assured that our children are treated to a very high standard of much more interesting and relevant theatre throughout any given year. But maybe I say that because I felt excluded from this one.
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*Victorian as in the 19^th century, not from the Australian state. (This show hails from Adelaide, South Australia.)

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