On leaving the Corn Exchange all the children were asking the same question; “Mummy, can we go back to Flathampton?” and who could blame them, Flathampton is deeply delightful.

It is an interactive theatrical environment that invites the young audience to play and engage with the micro worlds within it. Structured within a deceptively simple design concept of a flat-packed two-dimensional town, the children were invested with the task of animating and transposing Flathampton into a three-dimensional explosion of colour sound and energy.

The invitation was so welcome! They threw themselves at tasks like scratch mixing, cake decorating and lemon squeezing, they morphed into catwalk models, journalists, doctors and bank managers, merrily skipping between roles.

The ensemble performers improvised with the children, expertly alternating between the children’s imagined realities and cleverly interjecting their own scripted interlinked stories, which culminated in a grand feelgood finale, a surprise party celebration. The show lasted for a rapt 100 minutes, the time flashed by in a blink.

If only all theatre for children was this good, this innovative and this entertaining. If only Flathampton could stay for ever, then we could all go and play… and go back whenever we wanted!