Review: Space Shanty at M Shed Bristol
Plenty of Bristol heart and creativity in novel Space Shanty experience this summer
Space Shanty opens at the M Shed in Bristol this week. We went to take a look ahead of opening day.
The experience is a unique blend of immersive entertainment featuring storytelling, song, art, video, AI and interaction. Put together, it’s like a maze of theatre and surprises. It’s particularly good for families with children aged three years upwards.
Bemmie is the storyteller of Space Shanty. He’s a Ratronaut brought to life through puppetry on video and AI. The story thread is one of fact and fiction around Bristol’s involvement with space travel.
Where traditional performance involves actors, this space journey uses Bemmie instead. Visitors are very much their own supporting cast as well as the audience.
The set design and dressing has been supported by Children’s Scrapstore. This adds an additional ethical layer to its production. It’s a sci-fi world of cardboard rockets in a junk modelling universe.
The final tableau is particularly dreamy, ending in a space-mad child’s bedroom. Throughout, the experience entertains children and reconnects adults with play and wonder. The final scene brings it back to a safe place of dreams and imagination.
The experience feels much like that of the 2022 immersive theatre Doctor Who: Time Fracture, jumbled up with one of the more innovative sets you might expect to see in The Wardrobe Theatre or Tobacco Factory Theatres.
Stand-out features – at least from an adult point of view – include a light tunnel, light painting and a large space shuttle room – including an interactive TARDIS like sound console panel.
Children were very much drawn to a huge space shuttle that they were able to control.
The experience is running for the six-week school summer holiday. M Shed makes the perfect location to make a day of it. Space Shanty, museum, harbourside, steam trains and boats all in one location is a proper job day out.
The experience has been created through a collaboration between D-Unit & Dreamy Place, Yuup and M Shed. The lead artist on the project is Megan Broadmeadow.
At the launch, Megan described the experience as a “big den”.
Megan said: “The methods in which we built this are much the way you play as a child. We’ve not shied away from that playfulness.”
“It’s gert lush in there,” Bemmie said, adding “cheers drive” before the doors were opened.
Space Shanty opens at M Shed Friday 19 July and runs until 01 September 2024
For more information or to book, visit: https://www.yuup.co/space-shanty
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