By Zinat Moslemzadeh
From my seat in the middle of the Lemon Tree, I watched the half‑dark hall fill with the excited chatter of children and the soft whispers of their parents. The stage was empty, the floor dark, and the atmosphere buzzing with anticipation. At exactly 2 p.m., a cheerful voice echoed through the hall: ‘Have you had a nice weekend?’ The audience responded with a collective ‘Yes!’ The voice continued, ‘Are you excited to see the show?’ The replies grew louder. When the voice teased, ‘I can’t hear you’, the entire hall erupted with an enthusiastic “YES!” that set the tone for the rest of the afternoon.
Moments later, Darryl appeared: a young performer with a shaved head, blue eyeliner, a brown suit, and a blue tie, pushing a bright pink box onto the stage. The audience welcomed him with warm applause. Without speaking a word, he greeted the audience through expressive gestures, establishing the non-verbal clowning style that defined the entire performance. His physical precision and confidence were clear from the start, and it was impressive how quickly he built a connection with the room without uttering a single line.
He opened his box and pulled out a tiny toy dog, using it to warm up the audience while upbeat music played. Children tapped their feet, parents clapped along, and the atmosphere shifted from anticipation to full engagement. It was a simple moment, but it showed how effectively Darryl could turn small props into shared joy.
The first interactive game began when Darryl produced an orange hat and pulled a long red string from inside it. Instead of handing it to just one person, he created a chain across the front row: first giving the string to a parent, then to a child, then to another adult, and so on. Soon, a line of parents and children was all holding different points of the same red thread, forming a playful human pathway. Watching a child weave through this living maze, I realised how central audience participation was to the show’s charm. Darryl didn’t just perform for the audience; he performed with them.
The child stayed on stage for the next activity: a bubble-popping game using a toy hammer. Darryl blew bubbles while the child enthusiastically smashed them, and, judging by the delighted reactions, many children in the audience wished they could be the one on stage. The energy remained high as Darryl moved into juggling, first with baseballs, then with sticks, showcasing his physical control and comic timing. These moments highlighted his skill as a performer, not just as an entertainer.
But the show wasn’t only for children. When he pulled out three bunches of flowers, his parents had no idea what was coming. He selected three fathers from the audience, handed each a bouquet, and led them into a comedic dance routine. The laughter grew louder when he asked them to help wrap a mysterious box using rolls of tape. When one father finally unwrapped the box, he discovered a remote‑control car. Darryl lined up the parents and guided the toy car between their legs, a moment that had children giggling and parents laughing at themselves. It was one of those rare moments where adults became just as playful as their kids, and I loved how this segment broke the usual boundary between adult spectators and children’s entertainment. Everyone became part of the same playful world.
Right after, two children were chosen for a teabag-tossing challenge. From the stage, Darryl attempted to throw teabags into their mugs using a ping-pong racket. After several attempts, one child managed to catch a teabag first, but Darryl made sure the second child also succeeded shortly after. Both were celebrated equally and invited onto the stage, reinforcing the show’s spirit of shared fun rather than competition. On stage, he strapped a teapot to one child’s head and a spoon to the other’s, while balancing a mug on his own head. The chaotic attempt to pour tea and add sugar was one of the funniest moments of the show, and the creativity behind these improvised games was adorable.
When the children’s game ended, it was time for the parents again. Darryl drew a portrait of a random man from the audience and wrote ‘I want you’ under it. After the man joined him on stage, Darryl selected a second man. He handed each of them a balloon and a pump, and the race began: whoever inflated the balloon faster would win. Once both balloons were filled, Darryl brought out his own balloon, and the three of them danced to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’, followed by juggling and playful chaos. It was impossible not to appreciate how fearlessly the adults embraced the silliness.
For the final act, Darryl invited two other fathers onto the stage, not to compete, but to help him set up a risky balancing stunt. He asked them to hold a long board steady on top of a rolling cylinder placed on his decorated box. Once the board was secure, Darryl carefully climbed onto it, balancing with exaggerated tension that made the audience collectively hold their breath. Only after he was fully standing did he signal to the fathers to let go of the board and move away.
The two fathers then walked to opposite sides of the stage, each picking up a bucket filled with toothbrushes. Darryl balanced a mug on his head and challenged them to throw the toothbrushes from their buckets into the mug. The fathers tried again and again, laughing with the audience as every toothbrush missed the target.
Meanwhile, Darryl added to the chaos by pulling toothbrushes from different pockets of his suit – his jacket, his trousers, even hidden corners – and attempting the same challenge himself from atop the wobbling board. His dramatic failures, exaggerated reactions, and the father’s increasingly desperate throws created one of the funniest and most suspenseful moments of the show.
After several attempts, the fathers still hadn’t succeeded. Finally, Darryl made one last throw from his unstable position and, this time, the toothbrush landed perfectly inside the mug on his head. The audience erupted in cheers. The two fathers rushed back to steady the board and helped him safely step down from the rolling cylinder, ending the act with a mix of relief, laughter, and applause.
The show ended with Darryl’s only spoken line of the afternoon: ‘There is one international language, and that is laughter.’ And he proved it.
Out of the Box is a joyful, unpredictable, and genuinely heart-warming performance that brings children and adults together through shared silliness. Throughout the performance, what stood out to me most was Darryl’s mastery of non-verbal storytelling. His timing, physicality, and ability to build shared anticipation kept both children and adults fully engaged. I rated the show 4/5 because, while it was consistently entertaining, a few transitions between segments felt slightly extended, especially for younger audience members. A tighter structure could have elevated the performance even further. Still, the creativity, skill, and intention behind each moment made it a joyful and memorable experience.
