Grandpa speeding around always raises a giggle when it happens on the telly – it was very cool how they did it on stage, and it made for some very engaging audience participation. More raspberry blowing and bottom jokes would have gone down well. There were a couple of fabulous songs – look out for the Bongol Bird rhumba!
Nettie Scriven and Armin Friess created a beautiful, colourful and reassuring set, and the actors worked hard to produce a friendly non-threatening atmosphere – good when you have an audience as easily traumatised as this; even Father Christmas can make them cry! The all-singing all-dancing cast also set up the conceit of the theatre very well – in a way that diverted the kids from feeling ‘that’s not the real Grandpa from the telly’ and made the drama gentler.There was mystery and pathos – ramped up in Jason Mason’s soliloquies. The one character I worry about is Great Aunt Loretta – do children need this early introduction to the stereotype of an annoying elderly woman? The self-concious pirate and love interest (Ms Smiley and Mr Whoops) might be beyond many 3 and 4 year olds. Cultural indoctrination worries aside, it was a good story!
By the interval, I was afraid that my 4 year old co-reviewer would damn the production with faint praise: How do you like the theatre, pootle? “Fine”. Fortunately, after a large ice cream and a fabulous second half, his estimation changed. What did you think of it then, bumblebee? “Very very very good.” Anything else? “Too good”. Is that all? “Too very very very good.” Anything else you want to say “Too much very very very good!
The evening was a success but it didn’t end there. On the way home, by astonishing coincidence, we saw a tall elderly man with a dark red cardigan in the street – it must have been the real Grandpa!?