Andrew Haydon
posted 5 September 2006

What is perhaps most arresting about this iridescently happy piece of children's theatre is that the company behind it, Tangram, were last seen on stage with a production of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis earlier this year at the Arcola. A few years earlier, director Daniel Goldman appeared on the Fringe in the briefly controversial Child Killer: A Portrait of a Paedophile. One starts to think one has the measure of the man. One is wrong.

Unlike Kane's dark contemplation of suicide, Crunch is a happy romp through some of the more prominent apples in myth and history. Opening in the fruit naming division of the Eden Corporation with a professionally rivalsome Adam and Eve, and a curiously jaunty God, Eve finds herself unable to resist the charms of a rare apple, and the pair are cast out of the organisation and ordered to seek a new apple to replace the collectors item which Eve has just scoffed. The duo set off on their mission and find themselves in the middle of a surprisingly numerous selection of apple-related moments through time from The Judgement of Paris and the Apple of Discord, Isaac Newton, Snow White, William Tell, and even touching on the recent dispute between Apple Records and Apple Computers, before finding a replacement apple, and realising a blossoming romance in time for a happy ending.

The script is laden with hundreds of apple-based puns ranging from the groansome ('apple-y ever after'), to the genuinely witty (the backing vocals to a 1950s Bobby Darin-style number, simply running 'pomme, pomme, pomme, pomme'). Throw in some brilliantly performed musical pastiche numbers, some very funny clowning, and some excellent juggling. Add to this an indecently attractive cast, enough wry humour to keep the grown-ups happy, and a free apple for every member of the audience, and you're looking at pure Fringe gold.