Edinburgh Fringe children's show reviews: Rajiv's Starry Feelings | Funz and Gamez Rebootz | Lidiar + more

Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30) until 10 August

In a charming 30-minute performance, Rajiv's Starry Feelings teaches children - and some grown-ups - how to recognise and name their feelings through endearing cosmic metaphors.

The cozy George Mackay Brown Library is the perfect setting for this gentle story. The dimmed lights and soothing background music, coupled with heaps of comfy cushions, provides a welcome respite from the hectic nature of the Fringe.

At the center of it all is Maryam Noorhimli, who keeps masterful command of the room - no easy feat when trying to wrangle a handful of toddlers. Particularly impressive is the manner in which she focuses her attention entirely on the younger members of the audience, while still finding time to make dry asides to the parents. Rajiv’s Starry Feelings offers plenty of varied activities to keep the kids engaged - sniffing a spice tin, saying hello to a rubber duck, climbing a big tree - without ever feeling overstimulating or chaotic.

Owing to their lack of inhibition, children are in many ways the most honest of all critics, and their delighted reactions speak for themselves: at Noorhimli’s invitation, all of them stay behind after the show to continue playing with the extraterrestrial props.

The layout of the room adds another dimension to Rajiv's Starry Feelings; by seating the parents on chairs around the periphery, we observe the children as part of the performance itself. In doing so, we see Rajiv’s journey through their eyes, and experience their genuine excitement as the story unfolds.

However, we’re never relegated to the role of mere spectators; Noorhimli frequently encourages the adults to engage in her activities too. Her earnestness can pull down the barriers of even the most cynical adult - at the end of the show, we leave the Scottish Storytelling Centre feeling like big kids again.

Ariane Branigan

Funz and Gamez Rebootz ★★★★

Monkey Barrel (Venue 515) until 10 August

I have some bad news for comics across the Fringe. It turns out that nothing you can possibly do will be remotely as funny as a room full of small children hurling sponge balls at an award winning comic's face. Well, half full. The other half are adults fundamentally questioning their existing parenting methods.

The children are off their tiny cherubic faces on sweeties thrown at them by Phil Ellis, but still manage to produce many of the most memorable moments in the silliest 60 minutes you will have this August, where comedy and catastrophe collide to make something that tickles you in places where you didn't even know you had places.

From perfectly timed heckles that destroy a punchline, to pointedly impressive questions about 'what happened last night' and advice about never allowing girls in your show because they just walk out on you, Phil handles it all with what would be aplomb if he didn't fall over and lose his pirate hat quite so much.

“They're feral” he observes at one point. But so, in his own way, is Phil, and it makes for glorious, no holds barred Funz. The Gamez too are a joy, even the one shamelessly involving child labour.

A highlight of the show for us all is, I think, the stripping clown, with Tom Short making a welcome return to the Funz Fold.

Phil's new Funz friends for this reboot – an Orphan Wizard Boy and a Fairy Godmother - will, I am sure, grow into their roles, but for now they are more like benevolent bubble wrap around entertainment's Energiser Bunny.

I am, generally, not a fan of children. But the best possible reason for having one would be so you can bring it to a Phil Ellis show.

Kate Copstick

The Truth About Trees ★★★

Assembly George Square (Venue 8) until 24 August

Alfie is a perfectly ordinary boy; he loves stories, likes school (well, mostly) but when his grandad tells him that some paper retains the memories of the tree that it’s made from it captures his imagination.

There’s a nice — and very necessary — clarity to the storytelling in this show from Apropos Theatre. Developed through working with schools and young people throughout Aberdeenshire, it takes quite an abstract concept and demonstrates how it can take root in a young mind. Alfie’s interest in trees is all-consuming and he begins to worry about the threat to some local ones posed by a housing development.

Aimed at ages five and up, this show isn’t an ecological fable or science lesson in disguise - although you will come away having learned something. Instead it touches, very gently, on a child’s sense of wonder on the passage of time - what a tree might have seen and what it may become when it is cut down.

The talented young cast employ puppetry — sparingly — and, most effectively, an overhead projector and shadow play all in the service of the story. Kids should come away from this with a newfound interest in growing things — and if you stick around afterwards the cast may have something for them. Thoughtful.

Rory Ford

Lidiar ★★★

Laughing Horse @ the Three Sisters (Venue 272) until 24 August

The Live Room space at the back of spacious Cowgate bar the Three Sisters has an illuminated backdrop bearing the venue’s name up in big, multi-coloured lights, which sets a perfect scene for this burst of pre-midday circus skills for all the family.

Exuberant southern Spanish performer Kiki Vita, who introduces himself with space-commanding formality as Mr Vita, puts on a very traditional show, but his tricks are fresh and exciting.

Dressed like a clowning matador, his efforts to gee a drowsy audience just starting out on their Fringe day can be a little contrived, but he’s a convivial and friendly performer whose audience interactions – including group involvement in an impressively complex finale – for the most part stay endearing rather than annoying.

From easily juggling large, shiny blue baubles which each look too large to clutch in one hand, to plate-spinning and balancing tricks, increasingly undertaken at the same time as the stakes get higher, he deserves all the spontaneous gasps and rounds of applause he gets with each spectacularly accomplished feat.

For big and small kids and their families, this piece of skilled, undercover street theatre is an innocent and attention-grabbing forty-five minutes of light entertainment.

David Pollock

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