Theatre Review: Moss Piglet

Windmill Theatre Company are specialists in creating theatre for young people, in this case aged 5–10 years. The company delicately balances elements of education and entertainment to provide an accessible experience, engaging their audiences while feeding useful information into the audience’s mind. To say they do this very well is a vast understatement.

The story of Moss Piglet concerns a pair of scientists (Dylan Miller and Gareth Davies) conducting research into a microscopic creature known as a tardigrade, affectionately known as a moss piglet due to its general similarity to a swine and its minuscule size.

The scientists have a cartoon-like quality, sometimes communicating with actual language, while at other times speaking with emotionally driven gobbledygook. Their movements and facial expressions are stylised, sometimes exaggerated, which provides good engaging fun for the age group the show is pitched at, offering room for their active imagination to empathise with what they are seeing, while giving them space to interpret information without being spoon-fed moment by moment.

Much like the way a good storybook is structured, there are clear messages through narration, consistently broadcast as the story progresses. Contemporary children are exposed to a great variety of electronic media at home and school, so Windmill smartly and seamlessly incorporate live greenscreen projections of activities happening on stage, creating visually complex situations at times that serve by providing intellectual complexity.

This is theatre that transcends the usual collection of theatrical elements—lighting, sound, costumes, and set—truly extending the theatre experience into our contemporary time. Puppetry (shadow puppets, Bunraku, rod and an impressive inflatable), animation, original music, dance, mime, clowning, and even some classic/pop music (to draw the adults in) are all part of the mix that entertains from start to finish.

But wait, there’s more—out in the foyer, there are hands-on opportunities that provide further experiences for the audience, and opportunities for the parents/guardians to interact and demonstrate many of the concepts employed in the production in a more close-up and personal way. There are even some more scientists roaming around to offer guidance.

Tardigrades provide a critically important service to the environment by consuming organic matter and depositing nutrients into the soil. Yes, they eat, and they poop, which is one fact that is demonstrated to wonderful effect in the production. The thing that sets tardigrades apart from common garden worms and protozoa is their ability to withstand extreme heat and cold. They have such resilience that scientists are even imagining they may play a significant part in colonising other planets! No doubt this remarkable fact has inspired Windmill to create such an outstanding production in the first place.