If you’ve been dreading the thought of keeping the kids (and you) sane during school holidays in lockdown, then you can hit pause on the panic button. Paramatta’s Riverside Theatre is launching this year’s tenth anniversary iteration of the Spot On Children’s Festival onto the interwebs. Cutely rebadged the Spot On(line) Children’s Festival, there’s a packed program of fun stuff for all ages streaming direct to your home classroom/chaos zone from September 17 to October 3.
Hugely popular kids’ entertainer Justine Clarke will reprise her best-of show Everybody Roar, inviting families of all shapes and sizes to singalong and dance to the beat of her band, particularly appealing to little ones aged two-to-seven. You can help them explore their emotions with The Clown is Sad, created and performed by Ali Gordon and Alicia Gonzalez, kids aged two-to-eight will find out all about their feelings in a v Inside Out way. Go back to basics with brilliant shadow puppetry in Spike the Echidna, written and performed by Jenny Ellis, which will reveal the wonders of the super-cool monotremes (mammals that lay eggs).
Christy Flaws and Luke O’Connor will lead you on a magical physical circus adventure in Fort, teaching you how to transform everyday objects into a wonderland. You can learn about sustainability with the Junkyard Beats team in The Box Show, and the cool team behind audio adventure Mountain Goat Mountain have climbed on board too.
To find out more about all these shows and more, plus live Q&A sessions to answer all your enquiring minds’ curliest questions, jump onto the festival home page here. Tickets to the various on demand events start from as little as $8, with live events $10 or thereabouts, plus there are discounts for Riverside Theatres’ members and no pesky transaction fees. So heaps of fun (and peace of mind) comes cheap.