I Got Superpowers For My Birthday

★★★★

kids review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes

By Alice Saville

Published 16 Aug 2016

There's a whole galaxy of starry superheroes out there: Batmans, Supermans and Toxic Avengers glow neon-bright and give Hollywood execs poundsigns for eyes, adorning the t-shirts of quite a few young audience members at this show. But they're a world away from the 13-year-old protagonists of this joyful kids' play – and what a relief that is.

It's a three-hander with no set, no props and definitely no special effects. But you don't miss them. Katie Douglas's script bursts with life and colour as it tells the story of a trio of newly-minted teenagers with brand new superpowers to contend with. One can make ice, one can shoot fire, and one can make the ground crumble. But they're on shaky ground themselves, as they try to make sense of a world that's tough enough without supernatural powers thrown into the mix.

Remy Beasley, Richard Corgan and Andy Rush unleash performances as powerful as any supervillain. They spark off each other as they morph from painfully realistic teenagers into a bubbling mix of incidental characters: dinner ladies, doting parents and hair-flicking Year 8 cliques. And they hold us tight through the endearingly weird twists and turns of Douglas's script. It's only by fighting giant slugs and snotty gargoyles that these kids can learn to appreciate each other, warts and all.

The show's smallest audience members leave smiling and clutching balloons. But older kids who wouldn't be seen dead with a balloon in hand will get just as much from this super story, and its message that you don't have to fit in to find your place in the world.