Review: Tongue Twister – Edinburgh International Children’s Festival

Greg Sinclair’s Multilingual Quest in Kids’ Theatre

Greg Sinclair’s ‘Tongue Twister’, commissioned for this year’s Imaginate Edinburgh International Children’s Festival, is a seriously avant-garde piece of kids’ theatre. It finds the award-winning, musically inclined performance artist immersed in a world of difficult-to-articulate, yet innately rhythmic phrases. Think ‘She sells seashells on the seashore…’ – Sinclair’s first tongue twister of the show.

It also happens to be the only English tongue-twister on offer; the rest are plucked from tongues found elsewhere in the world. From Setswana to Gaelic, Japanese to French, Sinclair has been busy collecting. Inspired by the Brexit referendum and a holiday in Croatia, Greg asked himself whether he could learn every language in the world—at least just a little bit. You know, like a tongue-twister?

…a seriously avant-garde piece of kids’ theatre.

Inventive Stage Design and Joyful Wordplay

No one finds more joy in the performance of these linguistic curiosities than Greg Sinclair, and his sheer enthusiasm infectious. There’s also no doubt the amount of work which has gone into developing and producing the show: it looks and sounds great. The Yellow set, complete with 3 variably sized yellow circles that double as projection screens and prop stores, makes a substantive canvas for Sinclair to work with. The surprisingly array of props produced, most of which he wears at one time or another, inevitably conjure laughs from younger watchers particularly.

At the heart of it all are the words, and more importantly, the sound, feel, and texture of those words. ‘Tongue Twister’ could be subtitled, a musician’s guide to language. It’s quite impressive, in itself, to learn such complex phrases in languages, most of which he won’t speak otherwise, and not to butcher them. Now, of course, maybe he does – I don’t know, but he certainly delivers each with aplomb, and more often than not wearing a house, or a hill on his head, or maybe indulging in some interpretive dance.

A Playful Performance with a Calm Core

Yet, for all his capers, the show isn’t wild or raucous, instead, co-directors Lu Kemp and Hannah Venet infuse proceedings with an upbeat calm, focusing the ear on the wordplay. And all those props? Well, from a brain with frog-legs, to a seemingly infinite tower of skirts, each serves to illustrate or empower the spoken word. This is a highly polished, joyful yet considered plunge into the avant-garde.

However, whilst I love the feel of the show, from the electronic-edged soundtrack to the snippets of dance, play, and audience interaction, I found myself wanting to enjoy the experience more than I did. Here is where we have to allow for the fact that ‘Tongue Twister’ is predominantly aimed at those aged between 6 and 12. Reader, I am 45, and whilst yet to feel like a proper adult, life has still happened.

I might feel the absence of a stronger underlying story, or thesis, but when Sinclair asked for a volunteer to play his aunt, I watched one munchkin leap 5 feet in the air to get the part. It’s hard to gainsay that sort of feedback. A show that can make youngsters invest in such avant-garde adventures is doing something right.

Featured Image: Tongue Twister c_Matthias Kremer