Random toys, crafts, and gadgets sprawl across the stage. Mum and Dad stand like steady pillars to either side. And then, dramatic and menacing, something emerges: a machine-like figure, stiff-limbed, marching toward the audience as the music swells to a crescendo. The lights lift to reveal a little girl in a makeshift robot costume—all cardboard bravado and rainbow sequins—and we are pulled directly into eleven-year-old Juniper’s Orbit: a world as vibrant as the mind it represents.
Wisdom wearing galaxy leggings, empathy disguised as play, Theatre Works’ Robot Song makes a stirring return to the stage with a profound paradox at its heart: “If all of us are different, doesn’t that kind of make us all the same?”
Written, directed and designed by Jolyon James, Robot Song is a charming and tender love letter to his child on the Autism Spectrum, celebrating creativity as a bridge to self-expression and understanding. When Juniper receives a cruel letter from her classmates calling her “robot” and saying they don’t want her at school, she turns to her imagination—with the help of her devoted dad—as a salve for isolation, writing a musical to process the hurt and reclaim her voice.
Propelled by Nate Gilkes’ sweeping, deeply emotive compositions, music is the engine of the show, offering Juniper both refuge and revelation. To honour Juniper’s distaste for surprises, bold Brechtian title cards precede each section, guiding us through the musical’s chaotic creation – alive with glitching animatronics and live animation – as it unfolds in real time.
Robot Song rests entirely on its Juniper, and Adeline Hunter’s performance is nothing short of spectacular. At once sharp and vulnerable, lively and wounded, she embodies the character’s complexities with ease—her warm, soaring vocals an outstretched hand guiding us through the ragged emotional terrain. As Juniper’s loving, supportive father, Phillip McInnes is the perfect right-hand man, bringing colour and comedy while capturing the unique fragility of parenthood with nuance and care. The show’s live accompanist and Juniper’s mother, Michelle Doyle provides gentle, attentive support, her piano and harp weaving seamlessly through the action, lending both musical texture and a steady, comforting presence.
What might, in lesser hands, have sacrificed engaging, theatrical immersion for didacticism strikes this balance with astonishing precision. Instead of preaching its anti-bullying message, Robot Song invites young audiences to embody Juniper’s rhythms rather than observe them from afar. Lighting and music map her inner world with striking nuance, and playful audience participation ensures passivity is impossible. We stand, stretch, sing, and breathe with Juniper, sharing in her humanity and inhabiting the complex emotions that her cruel school moniker seeks to deny her.
A celebration of difference, resilience, and the familial bonds that hold us together, Robot Song is a triumph of heart, humour, and hope that will strike a chord with adults and children alike.
While her seven-year-old brother Jasper wasn’t quite as enthusiastic, five-year-old Amber, who sat behind me and sang her heart out during the show’s thrilling finale, declared it “the best show ever.” I say, take it from her.
Tix and info for production at Theatre Works until 21 February
