How old should children be before their first visit to the theatre? Common sense would dictate that being able to talk would help and an ability to sit upright might also be an advantage. Well, maybe, but on the principle of stretching its audience to the limit, one show at the Children’s International Theatre Festival in Edinburgh is aimed at children as young as 12 months.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Today’s mothers-to-be are made to feel insecure about their child’s development even before their first National Childbirth Trust class.

But rather than play on such fears, Tony Reekie, who has devised the running order of the show, insists Scribble is different. As with all 13 shows in the festival, it seeks to entertain, not educate. “I’m not teaching children how to sit in front of a play,” he says. “That’s the last thing I want to do. I want them to have an exhilarating time.”

The play, which tours Scotland after its run at the North Edinburgh Arts Centre, is a 45-minute show in which a character called Scribble walks about with a cart exploring the space, naming what she finds and reacting accordingly. At turns she is surprised, annoyed and scared.

This is the first show created for toddlers by Francesca Sorgato, of the French Compagnie Lili Désastres. She says that her experience of acting in a play called Cuckoo a decade ago convinced her it was possible to connect with such young children. “I discovered the joys of acting for a very young audience,” she says, arguing that any child capable of reacting to the world can react to theatre.

“Humans are built of feeling and theatre feeds that regardless of the audience’s age.”

As evidence that we shouldn’t underestimate children, she recalls the time she took a five-year-old to a production of Virgil’s Aeneid. It lasted six hours, but because the energy on stage was so focused, the girl stayed with it and got a lot from the show.

“The key lies in finding what is essential. As an audience member I don’t necessarily understand everything that’s going on, but I do connect with the energy which brings me into the world of the performance. If the energy is right, I’ll understand the performance.”

The trick of communicating with young audiences, she feels, is to put aside logic and treat the performance as if it were a game.

Children need time to adjust to their surroundings in a theatre, but, says Sorgato, toddlers are much less scared of new environments than adults give them credit for and quickly pick up “what the rules are for taking part in theatre”.

Ironically, the greatest obstacles Sorgato has faced are not from wayward toddlers but “grown-ups who talk through the show, parents who worry their children are going to cry and parents who tell their children what’s happening . . .”

If the children can get their grown-ups to behave, Scribble will be just the first of many toddler-friendly events in the festival. For next year Reekie is even considering a “rave” for the under-fives. “We want to help people who are interested in that kind of thing to explore how it can work,” she says.

Bring your own gripe water.

Bank of Scotland Children’s International Theatre Festival, Edinburgh, May 23­29; on tour May 27­June 6

Times Recommends

• Donor organ allowed child’s own heart to heal
• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating