You can work wonders with two folding ladders, a plank and a sheet. Hong Kong Youth Arts Festival founder and director Lindsey McAlister and a cast that has to keep up with her enthusiasm and energy will bring Roald Dahl's Matilda to the Hong Kong Arts Centre with a minimum of props. What there will be is a stage full of visual gags, charming costumes, and fast-paced direction.
And the production, in Cantonese and English, also offers anyone on summer holiday a good few tips for dealing with unwanted, troublesome parents prone to tantrums when they get bored with the lengthy school break.
Matilda (played by Jasmin Chan, 10) is an extraordinary girl but her gormless, irritable parents (David Ho Cheung-ip and Irene Tsui) think she is simply a nuisance.
As if this is not enough, Matilda has to cope with the odious Miss Trunchbull (Vickie Yue Ning-kong), who terrorises the whole school.
Although she is sensitive and brilliant, Matilda does not gain any really useful knowledge until one day, while being picked on, she realises she has extraordinary powers and can make trouble for the monstrous grown-ups in her life.
The cast of 20, all but one previously unknown to McAlister, were recruited through auditions for the short summer workshop which is sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank and the Kadoorie Foundation, and is a joint production with the Hong Kong Arts Centre.