What if you lived in a world that was grey? Where every minute of your life was repetitive and unchanging? You awake in a grey room, surrounded by sparse, grey possessions; you commute through a grey city, surrounded by grey people, to your grey job and back again.
This is the simple, colourless world of The Flower, expertly brought to life by Producer Daniel Naddafy at the Burton Taylor theatre in Oxford. Yet this is not a dreary portrayal of a post-apocalyptic future in a sci-fi story: this is a children’s play.
Based on the book by John Light and Lisa Evans (aptly published by Child’s Play), this is a heart-warming story that went down remarkably well with the five-year-old with whom I attended the play. The play was delivered without any dialogue, which was not a hindrance, thanks to the skill of James Newton who played the protagonist of the story. This meant the younger audience members could appreciate the story as well as the adults. However, it also meant that parts of the performance were difficult to resolve, resulting either in confusion or, depending on your approach, an opportunity for individual interpretation. At the beginning of the play, when the protagonist (whose name we never learn) travels to work, there were quite a few whispers of ‘what’s he doing?’ coming from children, followed by furious whispered explanations from parents and other adults.
Curiously, some of this may have been a result of the pandemic. For example, the child who accompanied me struggled to recognise the signs of a train ride, or a vending machine, as she’d encountered neither directly in the past few years – something which might not have been an issue had her experiences not been inhibited by a series of lockdowns. That said, this was a minor issue and certainly didn’t affect the overall impact of the play. During moments of magic, there were silences from even the youngest audience members, as everyone was fully absorbed. In an unexpected and saddening moment in the middle of the play, there were gasps from all – signs that the audience, including the children, were fully invested.
The play culminates in an uplifting and inspiring outcome that not only brings colour to the man’s grey world, but also engages the audience and literally reaches out to and gifts the children with the magic of flowers. The little girl with me couldn’t stop talking about ‘the boy who’d never seen a flower before’, and wanted me to share that she found this “really good!”. It led to some wonderfully thought-provoking conversations about everything from sustainability to ethics, all made possible by the accessible manner in which the play was presented.
Finally, I can’t review this work without another mention of the actor: James Newton, who engaged with children in an expressive and accessible way that was not only skilful, but also touching.
As with all good works, The Flower stayed with us, long after we left the theatre.