10 Amazing International Shows at the Children's Festival 2023
The Edinburgh International Children's Festival is a 9-day festival offering innovative family-friendly theatre and dance for young audiences. The Festival celebrates the best of children’s theatre and dance from around the world, showcasing high quality, distinctive Scottish and international performances to an audience of children, their teachers, and their families each year. This year the Festival plays host to work from Spain, Belgium, Norway, The Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark - and we've chosen ten amazing shows that we really think you shouldn't miss.
1. Somewhere Else [Slovenia] is a touching story about a girl caught in the middle of a war. Through her eyes we observe a city marked by terror, violence and fear. But also hope. Planes are flying over the city, the streets are empty and there is no food on the shelves. The school is closed and gunshots are heard nearby. As her environment gradually becomes intolerable, the girl’s only wish is to go somewhere else, away from the war’s atrocities. This story about the absurdity of war is sensitively told through a child’s simple everyday life and is vividly translated through the inventive use of a school blackboard as a spinning immersive setting. The show interweaves classic puppet animation with storytelling, live video projections and virtual drawings to amazing effect.
2. Step into the enchanting world of Los Galindos, the award-winning Catalan company who perform the enchanting and highly entertaining UduL [Spain] in a small intimate Mongolian yurt. The four-strong cast explores a roller coaster of emotional and physical confrontations using circus-style acrobatics, bicycles, carpets and farcical nonsense. This unique performance full of misunderstandings, false politeness and clashing egos is delivered with wonderful humour. Sitting on the edge of the stage in the round, audiences are taken on an intimate journey encompassing moments of supreme ridiculousness and instances of soaring grace.
3. In a circular space bordered by a glowing ribbon, a performer creates a world of sound and light in this contemporary circus show where objects seem to have a life of their own. Through movement, sound and touch, the audience is invited to take part in this journey full of acrobatics, humour, play, light and music. … And the Ideas Soar [Spain] is a genuine celebration of play and audience collaboration, where light and sound composition come together to make each moment a new and thrilling experience.
4. What do a toddler and your average world leader have in common? Do some presidents throw fits in the supermarket aisle? Or scream furiously until they get what they want? In BullyBully [The Netherlands], two world leaders meet in no man's land. A clash of culture, the collision of two world powers. What follows is an awkward encounter between two childish but powerful adults who gradually get used to each other and learn to meet in the middle. This is a madcap musical about childish grown-up men, featuring two performers, songs, funny quarrels, a bit of bickering and eventually, a happy ending.
5. Murmur [Belgium] is an immersive sound theatre experience, with murmuring backpacks, a landscape of scattered tiny speakers and an acrobatic composer. Camiel is building a world full of sounds. A purring cat comes from a pocket, a swarm of bees flies through the air, two arms create the sound of cars. Surrounded by the audience, Camiel jumps, falls, rolls, and flies in his attempt to compose the world. Suddenly the audience’s backpacks start to buzz and everything and everyone becomes part of a swirl of sounds in a loudspeaker landscape. Following their sell-out show Plock at the Children’s Festival 2022, Grensgeval delivers a fizzing new circus sound theatre for all the senses!
6. Herman is a creature of habit. Each day is the same. He takes the subway to work, files papers, and returns home to unwind in exactly the same orderly fashion. But something happens that suddenly turns his routine and life upside down, and soon things get out of hand! ‘Metro Boulot Dodo’ (the original title, meaning ‘commute, work, sleep’) is the French expression for the daily grind of work, and 9 To 5 [Belgium] captures that never-ending routine in a performance hovering between slapstick, theatre and dance which culminates into a hilarious office ballet of paper, stamps and freedom. The show is a wordless comedy about the power that comes from daring to be yourself in a world that grows more uniform every day.
7. In a dark and absurd universe of enigmatic games, we meet a man with a bucket on his head. With a touch of David Lynch and a nod to the long-running French TV game show Intervilles, a juggler moves blindly through a series of bizarre experiments. The audience is his only guide, come what may! Once begun, nothing can stop the journey, and one thing is certain… in the end, destruction awaits. Der Lauf [Belgium and France] is a nerve-wracking display of the art of balance and body memory. Authentic surreal circus that is strange and joyful, absurd and jubilant, interactive and just a little bit dangerous.
8. You Are Here [Denmark] is a beautiful and gentle performance about finding your way in the world – and within yourself. We meet a girl who finds her way to the bakery and back again all by herself, explores a forest of signs and symbols and uses the stars to guide us across the sea. In a world full of musical instruments, delicate props, cut-out images, maps and small objects, two performers weave stories of adventures big and small. Live music and projections complete this delightful show for curious little minds.
9. In a kitchen, in a theatre, two storytellers and their audience find something remarkable — a very old man with enormous wings [Ireland]. After consulting with the neighbour – who’s an expert on all things magic – the couple decide to shelter him in the chicken coop and feed him with food scraps. A wise woman says he’s an angel. The priest says he’s an imposter. Pilgrims flock to see him. Inspired by Gabriel García Márquez's darkly comic tale, the show taps into both the best and worst of mankind, wryly examining the human response to those who are weak, dependent, and different. Using a combination of music, puppetry and live video projection this magic-realist gem is brought to the stage with beautiful, strange, emotional richness.
10. A powerful performance exploring mental health for everyone who’s ever at odds with themselves. Featuring an incredible rotating set, I... er... Me [The Netherlands and Norway] cleverly portrays the main character’s battle with time and reality. “Lately, I have been overly concerned with myself. This morning I left home on time, but once outside it became apparent that I was still partially lying in bed. When I returned home that evening, the part of me I’d left behind had blocked the door. Through the window I saw him running around the house. It was a mess: letters had been stuffed inside the refrigerator, fish were swimming among the houseplants and my dirty linen had been aired in public. When I pointed this out, he denied everything and quickly slipped into the painting down the hall. Now I’m hiding under the bed. The lamp’s swaying back and forth and I can hear the clock ticking louder and louder...”