Theatre: Storm Boy (★★★★½)

By Tom Holloway
from the novel by Colin Thiele
Barking Gecko and Sydney Theatre Company
Directed by John Sheedy
Designed by Michael Scott-Mitchell
Lighting design by Damien Cooper
Sound design by Kingsley Reeve
Puppetry directed by Peter Wilson
Performed by Otis Pavlovic (alternating with Kai Lewins), Jimi Bani, Julian Garner, Anthony Mayor and Phil Dean Walford
Heath Ledger Theatre
Until July 11

Barking Gecko and the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy, the much-loved children’s story that has been sensitively and economically adapted for the stage by Tom Holliday, makes a short but welcome return to the Heath Ledger Theatre for the first week of the school holidays.
It features an entirely new cast from the original 2013 production, but its strengths and virtues are entirely intact.
This production is a final encore for Barking Gecko’s former artistic director John Sheedy. There’s no doubt about the legacy of creativity and ambition he’s left to our exceptional theatre company for young people.

I reviewed Storm Boy in its first Perth season in 2013, and this review of its return season inevitably contains some self-plagiarism! Link here for the complete version of this review, and here for the original 2013 review, both in The West Australian.