REVIEW: Come Dance and Sing with Jay and Friends

Come Dance and Sing with Jay and Friends is a live streaming children’s show from the wonderful Riverside Theatre, Parramatta, the second in their digital concert series.

Streamed live on Sunday, Aug 9 the show is all about going on an adventure, using your imagination and singing your favourite nursery rhymes and nursery songs. Featuring a best of the best selection any kindergarten child and their parents will be familiar with, some of the listeners expected more original songs off Jay’s CDs, but didn’t it just make you want to get up and dance and join in with the actions?

An accomplished New Zealand Australian actor, a familiar face in the children’s genre, and a father of eight, Jay Laga’aia’s show is a family affair. He has been a Play School host, acted in two Star Wars movies, musical theatre and tv, and recently appeared on Insight talking about his experience of fatherhood. The cast of five includes his sons Tana, on keyboard, and Iosefa on bongos and percussion. Then there’s the cheeky, over the top Nat Jobe and exuberant Zoe Sadler filling out the bubbly team.

There are 19 items in this 70 minute show, a mixture of stories, craft making and popular kids’ songs and a small count of 164 of us tuned in to this great initiative. In better times, I’m sure there would have been a crowd filling the theatre. During The Bear Hunt song, the crew spilt over into the empty theatre seats which made us very nostalgic we weren’t actually sitting in the seats watching the show live.

It did get a second out of sync from where I was watching, towards the end. Crazy are the times we’re in, where a one-off show in this live stream format keeps the wolf from the door and the actors in practice.

Reviewed by Mel Somerville