Review: Little M

A story for our age; a non-binary mermaid. Held during annual *Genderfluid Visibility Week.

*Not a joke.

The blurby bit

About the creator

Background

Typically Pink News gave Little M a puff piece, heavily quoting praises for it. Gendered Intelligence, FEAST and Yorkshire Dance have sponsored the work. Of the four performances held at The Place, three were early in the day to encourage families to attend, the advisory minimum age of 8 years and upwards, with one performance earmarked for school groups. I went to the Friday night performance, where it was mainly adults (you know the sort), though there was a good smattering of children with parents (you know the sort) and the keffiyeh-wearing Gen Z hipster sat next to me stank of old farts (yeah, you know the sort).

The review

Okay, positives first. I actually really liked it. The cast was likeable and the puppets really were fantastic. I don’t know enough about dance to judge these things but the choreography looked alright to me and well acted voiceovers for the characters lifted the piece considerably. It had humour. In terms of physical performance, there was definitely nothing inappropriate in Little M, and the lead wore a pair of shorts under his skirt, rather than expose his be-tighted groin area.

In terms of story though, it was very confused. It is never explained to us that Little M is non-binary, so unless you read the blurb before going in, I’m not sure how you’d know, and I still was, even though I did. So, Little M, is non-binary and played by a male performer, whose main ambition in life is to wear a dress. However, Little M flounces around in a skirt throughout, so this never really makes sense. Ah, but the dress being talked about is a ‘human dress’, you see. So we have to remember that and that this isn’t a story about boys wanting to wear skirts, or even a story about gender-nonconformity, given that non-binary doesn’t have a stereotype (unless you count blue hair). Yes, it is because Little M wants to be able to dance on the beach with human women, but can’t because they is a mermaid, which is why they want to wear a (human) dress, even though in the water they wear a skirt and dance with skirt-wearing bestie, Aurora. Aurora is described as a ‘sister’ and also played by a man, whose voiceover is also provided by a male actor. The two female cast members, one of whom looked as if she had had a bilateral mastectomy, played the roles of Merboy/Prince and the other played Fairy Godmother/various characters. Similarly, the acted voiceovers for the male characters, played by these female performers, were by women. At one point Little M and Aurora hold up two halves of a shell to make the shape of a butterfly.

Little M is told they have to wear oysters on their neck but they want to wear oysters on their tail instead. After dancing hard and having fun with friends, Little M stumbles across a Merboy, who has fallen from the sky. This makes Little M realise more deeply that they want to go above water to join the humans; there is a cost though, they will have to give up their voice and win the love of the Prince. So they give up their voice, which entails having their tongue cut out, but, of course, without a voice they cannot communicate with the Prince! Then, for some reason, they are faced with the choice of having to kill the Prince and is given a knife but they can’t do it. Cue the voices of their ancestors (groan) from millennia – I believe the words ‘we’ve always been here’ were uttered – to save them and give them back their voice! (Of course, no explanation given of how a tongue can magically regrow.) Not only that, but Litttle M gets given a set of gills by the Fairy Godmother, so that they can navigate both land and sea. The End.

As how to judge the trans activism in the piece, depends on your knowledge of the issues. I thought it unsubtle, and I think any children who were aware that puberty blockers/surgical transition existed would certainly pick up on the moral of the story, i.e. it is okay to lose something (physical) because you simply get it back, plus more. If it was rare for children in UK schools to be taught that gender identity is a real thing, one could regard the piece as fairly innocuous, given how confused it is. However, I think the parents and schools who bring children to see this, will be the ones who have already primed children to accept the narrative that medical and surgical transition never harms. And that’s why it’s a problem.

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