Dean Friedman's Smarty Pants

Theatre for the littlies ain’t what it used to be. A canter through the kids’ programme of today’s Fringe reveals a blitzkrieg of music, toys, tricks, lights, bubbles, bangs, wallops and an army of extremely hard-working actors toiling for their lives for this most candid of audiences. Indeed, "adult" theatre-makers might take note.

Musician and writer Dean Friedman has a few musical shows down at the exotic sounding Sweet Grassmarket this year, including this gentle five-hander which follows five-year-old Abby as she prepares for her first day of school. Sleepless with excitement—for Abby’s the giddy sort—it’s left to her wise old pa to proffer a soothing song and some sage wisdom about the trials that lie ahead.

Not that much seems to faze our effervescent Abby; in fact, it’s only when short-sighted classmate Bridget takes a disliking to her that she begins to deflate at all. But even that’s soon cheerfully resolved thanks to another little dose of life learnin’ from dad.

It’s all pretty simple, catchy and uncluttered, with a straight-up “school is cool” subtext and some workaday songs set to breezy bluegrass banjoing, but it’s hardly shifting the performance paradigm. The cast summon just about the requisite verve to keep their infant audience seated and sated, though you can’t shake the feeling that there are bigger buzzes for the toddlerati elsewhere at the Fringe.

“Yeah, it was all right,” says one foam hand-wielding redhead to his mum on the way out. Which pretty much nails it, actually.