If you’ve ever wondered what lurks beneath your bed, what clouds your brain when you’re asked a question in front of the whole class, or even what snaps at your heels when confronted with a physical challenge, then Taking Flight’s new show has the answer: Dragons.

You’ve Got Dragons is a deeply imaginative play for primary-age children by Manon Steffan Ros, adapted from Kathryn Cave’s book. Directed by Elise Davison, the concept is as simple as it is brilliant – all the fears and anxieties that plague us in our everyday lives are actually dragons, stubbornly immoveable. But how do we learn to live with them?

Six young friends hang out in a cityscape of brick, iron and electric light – a superb set by Ruth Stringer gloriously lit by Garrin Clarke – that suggests the dangers, real and imagined, hanging over an uncertain world. Grace (Grace O’Brien) watches her friends scale a low roof, but a dragon on her shoulder holds her back from completing the climb herself. She’s terrified. Rather than berate her, Grace’s companions recall a story they’ve been told of Ben, a boy who has to learn to combat his metaphorical (we think) dragons as he navigates homelife and school.

This Brechtian play-within-a-play device allows the characters to explore their fears in a safe environment without prospect of recrimination. The tension may have been ramped up further had the perils happened to the characters first hand, but Taking Flight has clearly considered the target audience of younger children, some of whom would find this once-removed conceit more palatable.

Ben – played by two cast members, O’Brien and Amy Helena (the latter signing BSL throughout) – demonstrates that we can all get “a case of the dragons” often in situations that our peers might find quite normal. And this personalisation of fears is so often what makes them feel worse. The trick, they discover, is not to defeat your dragons, but to learn to accept them and recontextualise them. Ros’s script communicates this sophisticated metaphorical conflict with skill, pathos and humour, the messages remaining clear amid the magic and madness of the tale. This is a play packed with honesty, and about how opening up to our friends can minimise our anxieties.

Elise Davison’s staging is brimming with physical wit. The dragons’ appearances are at different times represented by silhouetted puppetry, prosthetics, flourishes of costume design and most cleverly by the movement of the ensemble themselves as well as the use of wire-cage gates to create the beast’s wings. It eschews cinematic effects, remaining joyously theatrical.

As ever, Taking Flight celebrates diversity in a way that is wholly truthful and unostentatious, normalising the inclusion of BSL and ensuring it remains an equal language in the text. The quiet impact this philosophy has on the company’s young audience is immeasurable and an absolute good. You’ve Got Dragons is much more than a brilliant example of inclusive art; it is a beautifully performed piece of theatre with which all of us can relate.

Performance reviewed: 17th July 2024

You’ve Got Dragons

Chapter, Cardiff

Adaptation: Manon Steffan Ros, from the book by Kathryn Cave

Director: Elise Davison

BSL and Participation Director: Stephanie Bailey-Scott

Composer and Sound Designer: Dan Lawrence

Set and Costume Designer: Ruth Stringer

Lighting Designer: Garrin Clarke

Creative Captions: Ben Glover

Producer: Ffion Glyn

Performers: Alex Nowak, Amy Helena, Catrin Mai Edwards, Eben James, Grace O’Brien, Gethin Roberts

Running time: 1 hour