5 December – 10 January
It is 5pm on a Wednesday and the Weston Studio feels like a tiny expedition base. Children are inducted into the Brave Explorers Club with stickers, the lights are soft, and three performers in cheerfully Zissou-esque knitwear move easily through the space. Antarctica, devised by Olivier Award-winning Little Bulb and directed by Alexander Scott, runs for a neat fifty minutes and works fantastically as a calm, charming antidote to pre-Christmas frenzy.
Designer Verity Sadler keeps the world spare and clever. Drapes and snowcloth suggest ice and sky, a single strip of fabric flicks from sea to bird to blizzard, and paper confetti turns into convincing snowfall or the flash of a camera with the help of Joshua Pharo’s lighting. Sound design from Scott and Enrico Aurigemma layers in creaking hulls, wind, waves and underwater burbles so that a few crates and rugs are all that is needed to become ship, shoreline or ice floe. The visible hand-made quality is part of the pleasure.
The show is performed by Amy Harris, Peta Maurice and, at this performance, Deepraj Singh covering Emile Clarke’s roles. Together they form the Brave Explorers Club, led by Maurice as chief explorer Harriet Hawk, a pleasantly plum-tongued guide whose curiosity anchors the piece. Between them they flip through explorer, penguin, gull and elephant seal with minimal costume changes and maximum physical detail. The clowning is confident and generous, rooted in clear, readable choices; a seagull’s comic fixation on a sandwich turns into a neat “he’s behind you” game, and the penguin routine, conjured with a quick coat swap and unified waddle, carries just enough Mary Poppins bounce to send the children into fits of delight.
Music runs quietly and beautifully through everything. Snowflake headdresses trace arcs through passages of classical piano, giving the movement lightness and shape. The ice-diving sequence is a standout, a miniature voyage in itself: bubbles and blue light, an old-fashioned swimming costume, flippers and a deep-sea mask, jellyfish drifting past a tiny suspended diver and an enormous whale silhouette gliding across the stage. It is simple, precise and beautifully judged for young eyes.
Threaded through the animal encounters is Harriet’s quest to find and photograph the legendary Owlarbear, a glorious costume creation with the head and wings of an owl and the body of a bear. For most of the show it exists in hints and shadows, before our festive crypto-beast finally emerges in full feathered splendour to a very satisfied audience reaction.
At its heart, Antarctica succeeds because Little Bulb trust their craft. The clowning is detailed, the transformations deft, and the mood shifts handled with real musicality. Children remain rapt, adults appreciate the wit and invention, and the Owlarbear earns every gasp. It is a small but perfectly formed voyage and return, delivered with humour, care and imagination.
★★★★☆ Tilly Marshall, 11 December 2025
Photograph credit: Paul Blakemore
