Pitched as a children’s show, this digital production, A Mist of Midges, combines drawings and a forty-minute educational lecture on the midge, the insect native to Scotland, and their story.
The Highland and the Lowland midge, three generations born each year.
The show is split into 10 scenes covering the life of the midge species from birth through to living and thriving in Scotland.Â
I am not really convinced of this show’s target audience (3 to 8 year olds), although the visual accompaniment certainly tries to appeal to younger audiences with its bright colours and cartoon forms.
Allineate have placed this show in the ‘family-friendly’ and ‘visual art’ section. I found the lack of any music and the use of one narrator a slight issue given the running time.
A bit of variety might have been more appealing. Also, some of the artwork was too small to view properly, for example, the regions of Scotland map.
Although this is a fascinating subject in itself, and there has obviously been a lot of work put into the research behind it, I felt there was not enough care taken in making this show accessible or interesting to younger audiences.
The midge is a necessary evil, irritating to us as humans, but essential within the nature food chain.
I was happy to hear more about them, but felt another approach could be taken to get the message across in an entertaining and educational way.
The idea of midges rushing into battle with helmets and swords as they encroach into the Lowland from the Highlands has a lot of potential and appeal, but the delivery here is too vocally dry and needs a bit more from the visuals.
A Mist of Midges doesn’t really have enough engaging content for a 45 minute show at the moment, and I think younger children might well find themselves distracted and bored well before the end of the presentation.
For children, it does need a song, a rhyme, maybe a bit of basic animation.
I did like the bits where the audience are invited to count or spot midges in the drawings, but these are not in the same tone as the rest of the narration, which is highly infornation driven (climate change, food supply, AI) and unvaried in its delivery. In its current form, this just does not work.
If you do watch this I would recommend you do so on the largest screen possible – I cast my device to a TV – and stop and start to share activities with your children as you go.
Then you will get the most out of this rather than letting it run through as a show which is far too detailed and dry for most 3-8 year olds.
A Mist of Midges is available on-demand until the end of Edinburgh Fringe.
*.5