Article: THEATRE The Red Balloon, Olivier, RNT

Small children can be bracingly heartless. There was I, wrestling with a lump in my throat as a mysterious red balloon - which had palled up with Pascal, a lonely little Parisian boy - is murdered by the pack of school bullies and slowly deflates before his stricken gaze. Behind me, though, a young lad was wrestling with a sense of grievance. "But it hasn't gone bang!" he exclaimed in an aggrieved, loud whisper. He'd had preferred a bang for his buck rather than all this sentiment. Do we believe in fairies? No, we don't: pull her wings off.

Of course, the above spectacle is itself a reminder of the cruelty children are capable of. Watching Anthony Clark's musical stage version of Albert ...

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