Theatre Review: Me & My Shadow

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This is a magical performance for the young and young at heart. It is well worth a trip to the Festival Centre to see this incredible performance and awaken your inner child

Presented by: Patch Theatre
Reviewed: 14 August, 2026

When Patch Theatre first premiered Me & My Shadow in 2010, little did they know that some 16 years later the production would continue to bring so much joy and wonder to young theatregoers and their families. 

Returning to the Space Theatre, Patch Theatre’s award-winning production Me & My Shadow is a highly engaging and impressive piece of theatre. Whilst the show is aimed at ages 4 – 8, this really is theatre for children of any age. My 11-year-old was captivated, as was the inner child within my wife and I. 

Me & My Shadow explores what would happen if you could become friends with your own shadow. It is an exploration of the power of imagination, as the cast play with a set made up of boxes, paper bags and other simple household items. Bags become city buildings, or boxes become rocket ships. Everything the audience sees is relatable to their real lives and imaginative play. 

The cast, Astrid Pill and Nathan O’Keefe, work beautifully together. Nathan takes on the role of Astrid’s shadow, and though they often cannot see each other due to paper screens creating shadows between them, their movements are perfectly in sync. What comes across as the spontaneous, imaginative play of a young child, clearly has involved hours of carefully planned and rehearsed choreography. The result is pure magic to watch. 

This is accessible theatre at its absolute finest. The magic of this show lies in the very minimal dialogue and the story unfolding through dance and movement. Patch Theatre has a wonderful ‘no shush’ ethic and encourages audiences to verbally react to what they see or even ask questions to those around them. 

The show also looks at themes of friendship, touching on misunderstandings, shared play, how we connect with others and negotiation. For the entire 45-minute performance you couldn’t help but smile and feel the shared joy that this show brings. 

When asking my 11-year-old daughter her thoughts on the show, she said: “I think it was really fun. I loved the visual effects and I liked how the cast represented young children and their creative play.”

For the next three Saturday’s Me & My Shadow will be performing public performances at the Space Theatre. During the weeks, Patch Theatre will be performing this show to over 7,000 young theatregoers, which is a huge achievement by one of South Australia’s leading theatre companies for young people.

This is a magical performance for the young and young at heart. It is well worth a trip to the Festival Centre to see this incredible performance and awaken your inner child.

Reviewed by Ben Stefanoff

Photo credit: Matt Byrne