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]