Chicken Licken at The Lowry Manchester Review
Chicken Licken
The Lowry, Manchester
10 May 2015
Reviewed by Hannah Abbott
Sometimes the best shows are the most difficult to review and this has to be one of the best shows that I have watched in a while. An hour spent with a one man actor who brought his crew of puppets to life with the help of a very happy interactive audience was the best hour of both mine and my toddler’s weekend.
Although just below the targeted audience age of 3-7, my son had a fantastic time watching this spectacular performance of Chicken Licken and the Little Red Hen. Not only did he join the other audience members interact with the performance (note I say other audience members not children because the adults were just as involved if not more so) he laughed so hard that he fell to one side landing on my knee multiple times throughout the performance. He has left the performance and been explaining to everyone how amazing Chicken Licken was but how there wasn’t a real chicken but there was a beast. Clearly for my son the most important character was Foxy Loxy, the naughty Fox who tries and fails to eat the Chicken and Little Red Hen.
Overall this performance was a performance of amateur standing, but add more technology or change anything about it and I think it just wouldn’t have worked. It was a family performance aimed at young children predominantly with aspects for the adults to keep everyone happy. With simple props and puppets used in just the right way this has to be a performance my son will remember for some time. But beware, some children can catch everyone off guard with this performance because of the level of interaction and the whole performance can be switched in a second. Well done to the actor involved in this performance – he did a fantastic job of maintaining his cool and improvising whilst a child advised him that wheat couldn’t grow on a table it needed soil and water. Fair play to all involved as it was quickly and kindly explained that we just needed to pretend and use imagination.
I will be looking out for any more stories performed in a similar fashion at the Lowry because this was not only fantastic it was educational as well.
Enough to make everyone laugh and some fall over 🙂
Rating: 5/5 
The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, Manchester, M50 3AZ | 0843 208 6000
