Review: WALTZ OF THE HOMMELETTES, Barbican Centre

A bird, a bunny, and a baby; a shoemaker and a clock and a critter on a walk.

Les Antliaclastes' Waltz of the Hommelettes is a breezy, charming distraction of a play, 50 minutes of children's illustrations brought to life through costume, props, and puppetry. A gentle-voiced narrator sets up the stories, borrowed from the world of The Brothers Grimm, while the actors hop along and the puppets giggle and dance.

Think of a forest somewhere, out in the country or in your childhood, and the peculiar animals that live there. The colours are warm, the lights are dim, and although there are monsters in these woods, there is a sense of calm; the tiny world as you know it can be divided into the safe and the mysterious. A mother bird guards her eggs, a wily rabbit goes hunting, a befuddled shoemaker finds his fortunes reversed. Even the menacing moments are more curious than dangerous.

Waltz of the Hommelettes is an undeniably stylish piece. It is pretty and quaint, and, in the way that old things in the right light often feel very modern, like a typewriter or suspenders, the Hommelettes also feels cleverly on-trend. It is style by people who know style, a play performed more by its lovely props than by its performers.

The show's greatest moment comes before the lights even go down, as the audience members take their seats and notice the startling sight of a woman-sized bird sat behind a spinning wheel, a giant clock behind her, and all the quirky implementations that both furnish and define her charming world.

Seeing as it is pure style, one wonders why Waltz of the Hommelettes needs to be a show at all, and not, say, a tablecloth, or an ad campaign for fancy chocolates. The small, delicate set is lost in the concrete walls of the Barbican, the gentle tone drowned out by the roar of central London traffic. It takes only a matter of seconds after the show ends - until you get to the queue for the toilets, maybe - for you to forget why you came here in the first place.

Maybe the Hommelettes should be an installation; then its charm and style could be enjoyed at length, and not forgotten in due course to the goblin-less, rabbit-less charmlessness of real life.

Waltz of the Hommelettes at the Barbican until 19 January, part of London International Mime Festival

Photo credit: Jean-Pierre Estournet

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