Concrete Playground

Crowded House, Jane Campion, Russell Crowe. Any time a New Zealander does anything noteworthy we wander over like the swaggering older siblings we are and claim them as our own. Now, finally, it seems that the Kiwis have claimed one back in some sort of covert sting operation.

Shaun Tan is an Australian citizen with immigrant parents. He writes and illustrates children’s books about the migrant experience. He is one of those rare childrens book authors who share a space with legends such as Maurice Sendak (Where The Wild Things Are) and Raymond Briggs (Fungus the Bogeyman). Authors who create picture books of such complexity, emotional depth and  originality that they are more like graphic novels.

The Arrival is his most ambitious and successful work to date. It’s a surreal story of a foreign man who arrives in a strange land looking for work. And now those crafty New Zealanders have turned The Arrival into a play for children of all ages. It tells Shaun Tans classic story of the migrant experience without dialogue but instead through music, movement, puppetry and shadow-play.

In unrelated news we’ll be waiting at the opening of Peter Jacksons’ Lovely Bones with chloroform and a duffle bag.