Grown Ups
★★★★★ Silly
Traverse: Sun 25 – Wed 28 May, 2025.
Review by Sophie Good
The Edinburgh International Children’s Festival opened at the Traverse with a very silly show indeed: Grown Ups, which is a primarily non verbal piece about what grown ups do when children aren’t around.
One of the Spotlight on Flanders strand at the festival, Grown Ups was produced by Brussels’ Dutch-language theatre for young audiences, BRONKS. It was created by the five-strong Belgian theatre collective, Compagnie Barbarie. That’s Karolien De Bleser who directs, with performers Sarah Vangeel, Liesje De Backer, Amber Goethals and Lotte Vaes.
Grown Ups (Grote Mensen) by Compagnie Barbarie. Pic: Franky Verdickt.
Grown Ups opens with some tape rolling onto the bare stage, followed by other apparently mundane objects – cable, some oranges, more tape. The four performers take it in turns to carry these ‘grown up’ objects back and forth, looking busy and preoccupied. These are adults. Doing adult things.
Except that then, a leak begins and they are forced to deal with it. The chaos that ensues is hard to describe in any sensible language because it is, quite probably, the silliest thing you’ll have ever seen.
apprehensive
Our young reviewer was apprehensive at first: the boringness of the repeated ordinariness feels unworthy of sitting still for long. But somehow these four performers hold your attention, introducing little quirks, a few odd decisions and some quizzical expressions.
Their inability to cope with the water dripping down from the ceiling reveals a child-like vulnerability and some bizarre problem-solving ideas.
Grown Ups (Grote Mensen) by Compagnie Barbarie. Pic: Franky Verdickt.
And so it builds: more silliness on top of more silliness. All the rules are broken. How did health and safety sign this off? There are ladders balanced on top of wet floors, and some questionable approaches to electric cables. The laughter becomes more frequent, our young reviewer is quite simply falling apart from the absurdity, where you just don’t know what’s going to appear next.
The biggest rule of all is broken when the performers notice the audience. They are aghast. Phone calls are made. This show is mainly physical theatre but there are small amounts of words spoken mainly on the phone by one of the Belgian actors. The performers are surprised to see such a large crowd and ask them why they are here. The children delight in shouting back ‘to watch you!’.
rational
One of the performers commits herself to bringing theatre to the audience and attempts to reenact Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard using giant head masks – and that is one of the more rational parts of the piece. They reassure you that they are in fact ‘grown ups’ and they are solving all the problems that occur.
Grown Ups (Grote Mensen) by Compagnie Barbarie. Pic: Franky Verdickt.
It’s pure absurdism by the end: Buster Keaton and clowning and a climax that is so chaotic it’s hard to remember that this is a tightly rehearsed and choreographed sequence.
The performers are on their third show of the day, it must be physically exhausting but you’d never know. They are precise and funny and engaging. Grown Ups simply opens the door to how silly adults in your life can be. They are not infallible and not as in control as you might think.
the most fun imaginable
Grown Ups is aimed at ages 4-12 but from our young reviewers perspective it was felt to have a sweet spot of 7-10 years, especially as it runs for 55 minutes which might challenge the younger age range.
If you’ve got a small person to take along, bring them to experience their uncontrollable hilarity; if you don’t – go anyway and enjoy your own.
Grown Ups is absurd. And silly. And the most fun imaginable.
Running time: 55 minutes (no interval).
Traverse One, 10 Cambridge St, EH1 2ED
Sun 25 – Wed 28 May 2025
Sun/Mon: 7pm; Mon, Wed: 9.45am; Mon/Tue 1pm; Tue 7.15pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Compagnie Barbarie
Website: www.compagniebarbarie.be
Facebook: @cie.barbarie.
Grown Ups (Grote Mensen) by Compagnie Barbarie. Pic: Franky Verdickt.
ENDS
