A small object – spotlit, red and egg-like – lies at the foot of an empty music stand. Around which spread a white-taped constellation of geometric shapes, musical instruments and indiscernible squiggles. One of which, a large circle, stirs the curiosity of Rory Haye (one of four clownish musicians along with Sita Pieraccini, Claire Willoughby and Rory Clark) who repeatedly points and enquires, “What is it?”

Ask and you shall receive, goes the saying. And like the fin of Jaws breaking the blue, the gleaming torso of a ginormous sousaphone rises above an elegant theatrical drape, drawing gasps and giggles from the target audience of 6 years and over who are perched, wide-eyed with wonder, on the edge of the three-tiered seating banks of carpet, stool and chair.

So begins composer-musician Daniel Padden’s charming debut show WhirlyGig, co-directed by Gill Robertson in a co-production with Catherine Wheels and Red Bridge Arts, which through the twin ingredients of stretch and play celebrates the joyful challenge of creativity and ensemble. And by extension, friendship.

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There is a scored composition, The Whirly Theme, repeatedly summoned by an increasingly erratic cuckoo clock, which the quirky quartet return to – to at first rapturous and ultimately reluctant recorded applause. But it is the “non-performances” which form the bulk of the action. Each sequence removing or toying with one of the building blocks of musicianship.

Moth-eaten sheet music leads to a riff on ripping. Rivalries ignite an improvisational rammy. A fly in the throat prompts an unexpected change of pitch and pace. And in a much-welcome shift in tone from the upbeat and downright silly – the visual standout being an extravagant hat of pink lilies which would give Carmen Miranda a run for her moolah – a lap of waves over a distant bell and the drone of an accordion evokes dusk and slumber, melancholy and goodbyes.

The structure of the fifty-minute show may be repetitive and the crescendos more muted than dramatic. But the level and nature of the musical challenges – performed with poise and playfulness by the quirky quartet – provoke beaming smiles and ripples of laughter throughout, leaving the audience spellbound at what Padden calls in his programme notes the “magical and mysterious gift” of music.

Peter Callaghan
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