A plastic seat cover, a rain poncho, a programme that doubles as a pirate hat and an origami fish: such was the press pack for Pericles, the latest of the Open Air Theatre's commendable "re-imaginings" of Shakespeare for everyone aged six and over.
Director Natalie Abrahami certainly doesn't stint on the invention in her colourful production, but the immutable fact is that Shakespeare is tough and the rarely performed Pericles, a picaresque account of shipwrecks, pirates and fragmented families, is less familiar than most.
I'd say that there was roughly a 50:50 split in the school parties around me between children engaged by the action and those utterly bewildered from the outset. I wouldn't bet on any of them being able to give a plot synopsis.
Nonetheless that fine young actress Hara Yannas makes light work of Marina, Pericles's indomitable daughter who yearns, like Bobbie in The Railway Children, to utter the immortal words, "My Daddy!"
Pericles until July 23 (0844 826 4242, openairtheatre.com)
Pericles Re-Imagined
The Open Air Theatre
Inner Circle, Regent's Park, NW1 4NU
