The world of nine-year-old Hodder Jacobsen is a strange place to live. His mother dead he lives alone with his uninterested, night-shift working father. It's a solitary, routine world featuring a daily trip to the bakers for a rum whirl, random and seemingly impertinent questioning of his teacher Miss Asta K and a perplexingly optimistic approach to difficult circumstances. As the established class scapegoat, he finds that relationships with his peers don't come easily but his life develops a sense of purpose when a fairy appears to him and tells him that he has been chosen to save the world. Hodder soon discovers that life as the chosen one isn't nearly as rewarding as he had first thought but he sets about organising an expedition to the African island of Guambilua where his world trip is to begin. Frederik Christian Johansen as Hodder perfectly captures the silent strength but inner despair of the boy who finds reality and fantasy blurring around him in this amusing and offbeat story. Genz deals bravely with the themes of childhood loneliness and loss while also making something uplifting and wonderful that shouldn't be pigeon-holed for younger audiences only.

Justin Johnson - Notes from London Festival Progamme