The Guardian 11 August 2023

If the idea of imaginary friends strikes you as juvenile, consider the act of theatregoing. What does an audience do if not pretend to be watching something real? And in this consummate Catherine Wheels production, playfulness and pretence are central. It is in the stones scattered across the stage to create a town. It is in the chalk circle that becomes the rim of an opal mine. And it is in the wheel spun backwards to become a racing bicycle.

Above all, it is in the story of Kellyanne Williamson, a little girl in a barren Australian mining town, whose belief in her imaginary friends, Pobby and Dingan, is absolute. As certain, in fact, as her father’s conviction he will one day dig up a valuable opal and as everyone’s hope Kellyanne will survive a fatal illness. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).