The Dong with a Luminous Nose or 'Perfect nonsense.'

The Dong with a Luminous Nose
Little Angel Theatre, 14th September 2019
Written for The Guardian

The stage is filled with puppets that seem to swim in midair. A boy floats among them but the rest are colourful, abstract figures; long spindly red tubes or neon rings with fangs around their edges. My eight-year-old goddaughter, Blue, looks a little shocked as she whispers: “What are those?” I whisper back: “I don’t know.”

Nobody knows. Edward Lear’s nonsense poem The Dong with a Luminous Nose isn’t meant to make sense. The work touches on ideas about change and growing up, but, above all, this is a deliciously visceral experience that leaves the young audience with their skin tingling and their curiosity piqued.

Peter O’Rourke, who adapted and directed this show, created a brilliant version of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky in 2014 and seems to have a particular affinity with nonsense poetry. He doesn’t try to impose a rigid form on the show but instead delights in the sounds, sensations and evocative atmosphere that Lear’s peculiar tale invokes.

The script is fairly faithful to Lear’s original poem and tells the story of a lonely boy called Edward, who falls in love with a strange Jumbly creature that washes up on the shore. When it disappears, Edward attaches a glowing nose to his face in the hope he might eventually be reunited with his love. At first, Blue seems utterly bemused – particularly with the ad-libbed opening scene, which sees young Edward accidentally abandoned by his family. It’s all unapologetically dark and mysterious; doubly so with Ben Glasstone’s swelling classical score and spooky choral songs, all performed by a horde of solemn puppeteers dressed in funereal black.

But gradually Blue stops looking for answers and starts to enjoy herself. The Jumblies, a family of strange shapes and sizes, perform a surreal ballet. With each new stream of shape-shifting puppets, Edward changes form, too. Blue happily comments on each transformation (“He’s a balloon!” “He’s really thin!” “Now he’s a squiggle!”). Edward tap-dances with his new friends, swims and sings. This show might not have a strict story arc, but the number of different artistic mediums squeezed in here – modern dance, abstract art, classical music and poetry – is hugely impressive. It’s such a learning experience for the children and an exposure to so many new forms of art, yet it never feels like hard work.

There’s an attention to detail here that is genuinely moving and implies real respect and admiration, both in relation to the source material but also the children watching. Young Edward, a spindly wooden puppet, is controlled by three, sometimes four, puppeteers. His loose limbs are brought to life with exquisite care and, in the best moments, it looks as if he’s walking on air. It lends the whole production the air of an exultant dream. Who knows what on earth it all means, but none of us want to wake up.