Dad is vis­it­ing China. He leaves older sis­ter Stella in charge of the farm. This is a mis­take as she promptly sells it, then scarp­ers off to Par­is to spend the pro­ceeds, leav­ing little sis­ter Daisy the almost use­less black­berry patch. How­ever Daisy is very resource­ful and hard­work­ing. She is determ­ined to buy the farm back before their fath­er returns from China. Everything goes well until Stella returns from Par­is and wants in on the money…

Ren­ee Liang has trans­lated and adap­ted a clas­sic Chinese folk tale – The Tale of the Fra­grant Fart­ing Man. She has switched the broth­ers for sis­ters, and set the begin­ning of the story in Lev­in. (Well, it’s a lovely place to Lev­in in isn’t it?) The farts do not make an appear­ance until after a shock­ing act by Stella. This is the cata­lyst for Daisy’s gassy empower­ment. Each of the act­ors takes great glee in mani­fest­ing the farts and it is lots of fun to watch what will hap­pen next.  The set is very much like a pop-up book. Paper props influ­enced by Chinese folk art and shad­ow pup­pets com­plete the feel­ing that we are being read a bed­time story. The musi­cian Adam Ogle, provides the sound track which includes a num­ber of famil­i­ar music­al stings that made the adults in the audi­ence laugh.

Although the story is not always clear, there is great ingenu­ity in the way the action plays out.  Billed for ages 7+ I think young­er chil­dren who are used to being read stor­ies will have a fine time as well.

  • Part of the 2015 Chinese New Year cel­eb­ra­tions and the 2015 NZ Fringe Fest­iv­al,  The two fart­ing sis­ters, on at BATS Theatre until 21 Feb­ru­ary 2015.