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Various venues, London; Bristol Old VicLittle Amal makes human hearts beat faster, while compassion fuels Emma Rice’s great whirl of a Brontë adaptationIn Arabic, Amal means “hope”. And hope is embodied in each step of The Walk, the journey across Europe, begun in July, made by the three-and-a-half metre-tall puppet called Little Amal. By the time she arrives in Manchester on 3 November, she will have walked more than 5,000 miles from the Syrian-Turkish border, a refugee child in search of her mother. In Greece she was pelted with stones. In France she moved through fields of sunflowers, their heads drooping as if they were tired children. In Italy she was taught to make pasta. She appeared against the white cliffs of Dover, and in Lewisham, south London, where crowds of children yelled: “Two four six eight, who do we appreciate? Little Amal!”She evokes wonder and sorrow. She is a marvellous contradiction. She celebrated her 10th birthday with a party at the Victoria and Albert Museum, but she towers above adults: her hands are large enough to cup a human face. She is an expressive presence who cannot speak. People reach out to touch her, rather as people must once have waited for the royal touch to cure them – yet she is no monarch. The ceremonial west doors of St Paul’s Cathedral swung open to welcome her a week ago: as she bent her head to the clerics in purple, she might have seemed to bless them – but piety is not part of her vocabulary. Her walk is tentative and gentle but it is deliberate. Continue reading...