*** Spaghetti, Psghetti, Everywhere! *** (Hasbro Play-Doh Mini Fun Factory)

Member Name: malibu_jenny

Product:	Hasbro Play-Doh Mini Fun Factory
Date:	20/07/09 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Clean, Bright and Creative

Disadvantages: Lids are a bit hard to get off, but that might save your carpet.

I spotted this in Tesco a while ago and picked one up to put in the Christmas shoe boxes for Romania. It's a small set, around the size of an adult hand on bright yellow cardboard backing, so the just the kind of thing for pass the parcel, party bags and stocking fillers. Tesco have it for 97p, but I've seen it elsewhere for as much as £4.50. This week I grabbed one off the plastic strip with four-year-old Little Nephew in mind. Usually we seem to buy action figures or cars, but they just don't have any play value and there was a wet weekend forecast.

He'd spotted in the car on the way to the BBQ and when we got back, I suggested that we could have a quick play with it once he was in his pyjamas - he managed that double quick. We were making a video call to The Boyfriend's mum on Skype, so it was fairly important that he sat still in front of the webcam for long enough to actually see her. We opened the packet (what a relief, no twiddly bits of wire or unbreakable box) and popped it out on the table.

You get two small tubs of Play-Doh and a small version of the old fun factory (nostalgic!). For anyone who hasn't played with this, it's a plastic hinge, which squeezes the Play-Doh out in long strings. You pop a ball in the little gap provided, push the handle down and you're away. The original big Play-Doh factory had a sliding part on the back which let you squeeze the dough out in stars and so on, but this just has a fixed set of four holes. I think from looking at them, they're supposed to make four different results, but our spaghetti all looked the same. The best bit about the mini factory is that you can't squish your fingers in it, no matter how hard you try. And I tried!

We made some 'spaghetti' while The Boyfriend chatted into the computer. Then we got carried away, started calling each other Luigi (sorry if that offends anyone, but it sounds like a good name for an Italian restaurateur) and used the top of a WD40 bottle to squish out pancakes and pizza bases. We made the base from one colour and the topping from another, it didn't matter at all that there were only two colours because we had imagination.

Although there were only these two little tubs, there was enough for Little Nephew and I both to play. And to share too; The Boyfriend was happily squishing and cutting as he talked. He made a scale model of Luigi in green dough, which was promptly mocked and minced into more spaghetti.

This occupied a good half hour and bedtime was on us before we'd scratched the surface of stuff we could do with it. We resumed playing in the morning so that the process could be demonstrated again to The Boyfriend's dad and MyDogs, who hadn't paid much attention the night before. I found clean up really easy; just rolling a ball of Play-Doh around the table picked up all the bits. I did the same with the factory, kind of sponging at it with the other Play-Doh to get it clean. There were no bits left on Little Nephew and no greasy marks left at all, though I wouldn't like to have trodden it into the cream carpet.

The Boyfriend's main concern seemed to be the 'mixing' of colours, where you couldn't quite get all the bits of green out of the orange or vice versa. I was less bothered about this, I remember Play-Doh just turning into a brown slurry when we were kids and at least now each colour seems to hold its own. It'll make prettier rainbow spaghetti next time.

There's no ability required at all for this and Little Nephew was in his element playing with it. In fact, it was so exciting he forgot about the slice fo Birthday Cake he had in the fridge! The Scene Starters and so on might look pretty, but they just overcomplicate the simple joy of squishing Play-Doh. Play-Doh should be fun and tactile and this is it at its best.

Summary: I'd give it more than 5 stars if I could.