"Books are dangerous things!" So sings Kevin – the boy of the title. They get into your head and make things happen. What's more, they only come to life if we imagine them into being: reading (like this kind of playgoing) is an active occupation.
One minute, 10-year-old Kevin is in bed, reading the exploits of sock-it-to-'em private investigator Rockfist Slim; the next, he is trapped inside a disused industrial oven alongside his hero. In buddy-movie style, the mismatched pair set out on a series of bond-building adventures, through stories from the books on Kevin's shelves.
Characterisations (given shaping contours by Sheila Carter's choreography) are childhood-sharp. Evelyn Hoskins distils boyness from wide-eyed wonder and swaggering assurance. Nicolas Colicos's Rockfist lets thoughts strike him in slow motion. Katie Birtill is a pulp- perfect scarlet woman. Natasha J Barnes strikes more than one high note as chesspiece Queen. John Barr's Gran-Wolf is fairytale duplicity personified. Stephen Matthews deliciously desiccates his Scottish historical-romance villain. On the bare, round stage, they conjure worlds with the help of extravagant costumes in minimal sets, designed by Michael Holt, all atmospherically charged by Jason Taylor's witty, interactive lighting.
An unusual collaborative trio is responsible for this tune-full transformation of Alan Ayckbourn's 1998 play: Paul James(musical adaptation/lyrics); Cathy Shostak and Eric Angus (music). Their Kevin-sized piece packs a Rockfist punch. As always when Ayckbourn directs, the audience's imaginative contribution is a crucial component in this knockout mix. Kevin finally vanquishes evil by learning to distinguish between the rhetoric of threat and the reality of power. Fiction that encourages folk to think? Now, there's a dangerous thing!
