Imagine that

Lucy Ribchester discovers an Adelaide Fringe programme brimming with innovative children’s shows, from stories inspired by jars of scent to a barking mad take on ballroom dancing

Think children’s parties and what springs to mind may be a mixture of chaos, noise, and food used as missiles. Storyteller Helen Lawry, however, has a different idea, and in her show, Party For Two, she aims to celebrate ‘quiet people who like small parties’. The show is set to take place in Adelaide’s lush Botanic Garden and is an acknowledgement that not all children love noise, mess and social-sensory overload. Instead, it promises to subtly encourage play in the natural world, by telling the tale of a storyteller preparing (with lemonade and mud cakes) for a small, chilled gathering.

For kids who do like to make noise, however, Elias Faingersh’s A Journey To The Land Of Sounds is a celebration of all things aural. With the aid of his trombone, live loop machines, animation and a lot of collective imagination, composer-performer Faingersh invites you to board an imaginary train that can travel underwater, through space, and back in time. Audiences are asked to come prepared to join in with the clicking, rustling and thumping, exploring all the ways the body can be tuned to make sound.

At the sound spectrum’s opposite end, Stephen Noonan’s The Boy And The Ball demonstrates that some stories need no words at all. Touring specifically around schools during the Fringe, this non-verbal tale is about struggling to fit in when you’re shy, and aims to explore the turbulent ‘rite of passage’ that all small children have to go through as they begin to enter social spaces and navigate friendships. It’s already been garnering glowing reviews for its simplicity and elegance.

Also touring schools, Patch Theatre and Stephen Sheehan have created a play based around the innovative concept of scent as story. In Spark, Sheehan arrives in a classroom with a suitcase full of jars, containing mysterious smells from birthdays long past. Each scent provides the stimulus to a variety of different story paths, introducing children to the idea that scent can trigger both memories and emotions.

Did film legend Baz Luhrmann ever imagine that his debut film, Strictly Ballroom, would become such a cultural touchstone, fuelled by the Dancing With The Stars and Strictly Come Dancing TV shows that have spread all over the world? Comedy practitioners Jon and Ollie, along with The Garage International, have now created their own canine-flavoured homage to the franchise in Strictly Barking, a sequinned, high-energy slapstick and dance extravaganza about a lonely old man and a homeless dog who become friends before taking to the stage for ‘fab-u-lous’ ballroom dancing. The duo arrives at the Fringe with a bunch of audience awards and glowing testimonies for their previous work; and let’s admit it, permission to enjoy the silliest of kids shows is one of the secret perks of being a parent.

Party For Two, Adelaide Botanic Garden, North Terrace, 18 & 19, 25 & 26 February, 4 March, 10am & noon; A Journey To The Land Of Sounds, Crack, Franklin Street, 11 March, 2pm; The Boy And The Ball, touring schools, 17, 20–23, 27 February–1, 7, 9, 14 March; Spark, touring schools, 6–9 March; Strictly Barking, Migration Museum, Kintore Avenue, 25 & 26 February, 2.30pm, Adelaide Town Hall, King William Street, 4 & 5, 11 & 12, 18 March, 1.55pm.