Review: The Gruffalo’s Child, at Birmingham Town Hall
Julia Donaldson’s sequel to her most famous book The Gruffalo has become a classic must-read story for young children.
It was brought to life last year in a mesmerising and most beautiful feature film and so it was always going to be a challenge to bring the same magic from the book and the film to the stage adaption.
The story follows the Gruffalo’s Child creeping into the deep dark wood in search of a big bad mouse and along the way meeting a snake, an owl and a fox.
Lesley Cook, as the mouse, engaged the audience at the beginning as she narrates parts of the story, only to be interrupted by the Gruffalo’s snores.
The imposing appearance of the Gruffalo was a little too much for some of the younger children in the audience, who hid their faces at such a giant beast.
But their fear soon dissipated when the cuddly looking Gruffalo’s Child leapt onto the stage.
In this adaption by Tall Stories, the original story is added to, with extra dialogue interspersed with a few songs.
But unlike other children’s theatre productions I have seen, the Gruffalo’s Child failed to engage the audience at times, with some dialogue too complex to keep a child enthralled.
However, Ellie Bell is great as an enthusiastic Gruffalo’s Child and Tom Crook, who plays the Gruffalo, snake, owl and fox, is at his best as an incredibly camp dancing snake, although his voice was a little lost at times.
The songs could have been a little more catchy and frequent to encourage any sing alongs but for those who can’t get enough of The Gruffalo stories, it is certainly a very watchable performance.
*Until January 16.
