Erin Harrington reviews Kitchen Chaos, presented by Rollicking Entertainment, at the Court Theatre, Thursday 2 October 2025.
Young audiences are the best to entertain, but they certainly are the toughest to please. No fear: even in the opening minutes of Kitchen Chaos, performers Lizzie Tollemache and David Ladderman clearly have the school holiday audience under their messy spell as they get everyone to help lay out a large ‘plastic fantastic’ sheet across the splash zone in the front row.
Kitchen Chaos sees the return of the two messy magicians from the Messy Magic Adventure, most recently seen in Ōtautahi during this year’s World Buskers’ Festival, and it offers another delightful helping of domestic disaster. Sensible straight guy Spray (Tollemache, in red) and distractible goofball Wipe (Ladderman, in blue) have been invited to a surprise party, but they’ve arrived too early and no one is sure where the guest of honour is. Instead, there’s an empty kitchen in need of a good tidy up, so they get to work. Spray’s agitated attempts to be responsible and get the job done efficiently are forever undermined by Wipe’s childlike love of the ridiculous. “Whatever could possibly go wrong?” they ask; the answer, everything. After a very mucky mishap involving a very special cake, the pair employ the services of a magical cookbook called Edmonds (voiced by director Gregory Cooper) to try to make things right.
Kitchen Chaos is 45 minutes of colourful, high-energy physical comedy. The straightforward order / disorder narrative integrates slapstick, magic, kid logic, wordplay, dance, call and response interaction, puppetry and circus tricks. Some of the gags are terrific, but no spoilers here! It’s world-class family entertainment, and well-suited to the close quarters of the Court Theatre’s black box front room, although I wonder if those dangling over the rails of the mezzanine have as clear a view as those of us on the ground.
The excitable kid-heavy audience is in fits of laughter the whole way through – cheering, squealing, shouting suggestions, sometimes jumping up and down on their seats. They’re thrilled to see Spray’s attempts at parent-like discipline go awry, and love encouraging Wipe to sabotage the whole endeavour. Tollemache and Ladderman are skilled collaborators with a long history of busking, sideshow, and theatre work, and they know how to entertain young people without talking down to them, and to keep everyone in the audience feeling special. Spray and Wipe are available for photos after the show, and the line runs most of the way down the Court’s very long foyer.
I’ve seen the messy magicians in various iterations since their first outing in the wonderful Messy Magic Show in 2016, and I love seeing how the characters and the comedy have developed over time. This particular production has employed Tessa Waters, of the Feminist Clown Posse, as a dramaturg. You can see just how much depth and rhythm this collaboration has resulted in as the pair exploit the opportunities provided by the kitchen setting and turn everyday items into objects of wonder. This includes a lot of well-timed play with sound and light, with lighting designer and tech operator Geoff Nunn effectively acting as the show’s third performer (and secret weapon). Skye Broberg’s lovely kitchen design, which combines a black and white sketchbook aesthetic with pops of primary colour, rounds out the very effective design.
Thanks to my own boring grown up schedule I’m only able to attend right at the end of the run, and those who haven’t been to the show will only have a couple more opportunities to head along. (Regular PSA: and you don’t need kids to go to a kids show!) Kitchen Chaos is part of Rollicking Entertainment’s rotating suite of offerings, though, so hopefully the messy magicians will be mucking things up again soon. Perhaps it’s time for a trilogy?
Kitchen Chaos runs at the Court Theatre until Saturday 4 October.
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