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Sunday 16 December 2012

Hot-Diggerty! What I thought of Mole's stage show.

I took the train down to London yesterday to see Peaceful Lion's new stage show of Bringing Down the Moon. Although it's not the first time one of my picture book's has been adapted for the stage, this was the the first time I'd been to see the show and I have to admit to having some trepidation about the experience - what if I hated it? Fortunately I LOVED it!

The show is currently running in the small "StageSpace" studio theatre at The Pleasance in Islington. I watched it with an enthusiastic audience of young children and their parents. Some of the audience had obviously read the book, as they kept shouting out what was about to happen, but that just added to the humour of what was a very entertaining performance.

In fact, if I have one criticism of the show, it would be that it's actually a little too funny; I'm worried that people might come out of it saying that it was much funnier than my book. I voiced this concern to the cast and crew afterwards and asked them if they could try to make subsequent performances a little less amusing, but I don't think they took my request seriously.

Aside from the uncomfortably high level of hilarity, it was a very enjoyable show with some great songs, lovely costumes and characterful performances from all the cast.

Here's me with the show's adapter and director, Ollie, and the cast,
John, Victoria, Fleur and Henry, after the performance.

Bringing Down the Moon Play