This deliciously anarchic and deeply engaging show is an educational treat for early years audiences.

The show consisted of three parts - the first used clowning skills to explore clay and built a relationship between the two performers and the audience. I found this part particularly delightful - the performers were incredibly warm and engaging and I found the simply structured comedy surprisingly hilarious. The performers skilfully created an atmosphere that felt at once safe and anarchic - they gleefully broke rules while modelling a very warm brand of collaborative play. Next, the audience collaborated to make a story up, which was then acted out using clay figures. Of the whole show, this was the only part my daughter (3 next month) was perhaps a shade too young for - she struggled a little to keep attention before the puppets were finished. The 4+ audience members absolutely thrives on being able to influence the action however, enthusiastically contributing to a story about a dinosaur made of cake. Finally, everyone was handed a lump of clay and invited to play or sculpt a figure. This blew my child away - by this point she’d been asking if she could touch the clay for about 20 minutes.

I was particularly impressed by how well the show engaged with early years learning objectives - basic numeracy was covered, as well as exploration of emotions, senses and the properties of clay. The section where children collaborated to make a story obviously engaged young children’s literacy skills as well. For this reason I’d particularly recommend the show to children who are home educated or not yet in pre-school - there was such a wealth of talking points here, and I can easily see how, with the help of some plasticine, you could base a whole week’s worth of learning around this play.

This show felt extremely fresh to us - previously we’ve only seen narrative based theatre together. This freedom from a narrative structure created a real sense of possibility. It’s been a while since I’ve been genuinely surprised by a show for children this young! I would fully recommend Claytime for an audience aged 3-7. We’ll be talking about this one for weeks.