🎭 The Three Little Pigs
📍 The Drum, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Royal Parade, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 2TR
🗓 Wednesday 3rd April 2024
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A PIGGIN' GOOD LAUGH
Stuff and Nonsense create shows for children and their latest offering The Three Little Pigs is the perfect treat for your little ones during the school holidays. The show is currently playing in The Drum at Theatre Royal Plymouth where I was invited along last week.
What is unique about this piece is that it has been co-written by Year 6 schoolchildren, some from a local Plymouth school, alongside writer-in-residence Anna Murphy who brought those ideas together to create a cohesive story. You can find out more about the creative side of The Three Little Pigs by clicking here to watch a short documentary.
As the show opens we meet Dustin Huffman who is telling us the story of The Big Bad (Beautiful) Wolf, and he soon has the delighted audience literally howling. The story is interrupted by three scared pigs who enter through the audience looking for a place to hide from the scary wolf.
The Three Little Pigs is everything you could want from a show with a young target audience as what follows is a fun show filled with lots of visual and physical comedy.
It is suitably silly and gloriously chaotic in equal measures and manages to strike a great balance between keeping the children engaged and not forgetting the parents, meaning that it can be enjoyed by every generation of the family.
The use of puppetry here is exquisite and really well done. Kudos to the two performers Donald Craigie and Jenny Harrold who both have great versatility and energy - being on stage constantly for 60 minutes in a fast paced production is no mean feat.
The set is mutifunctional and is utalised well throughout. How the performers moved pieces around and they became something else was a creative joy and thing such as the armchair and a suitcase had been cleverly designed so that the puppetry could take place easily, and helped add to the wonder for the younger audience members.
The show is filled with lots of wonderful moments such as pigs pretending to be sheep, the building of a treehouse and the puppets themselves using puppets!
The Three Little Pigs will have the entire family howling with laughter and squealing with delight! The production is playing in Plymouth until Sunday 14th April with performances daily at 11am and 3pm. Head to the TRP website here to secure your seats.
Neill Kovacic-Clarke
All views are my own and I pride myself on being honest, fair and free from influence. Theatre is subjective and it is important to remember that all views expressed are just those of one reviewer.
My ticket for this performance of The Three Little Pigs was gifted by the Theatre Royal Plymouth who invited me to watch the show in exchange for my honest review. The fact that my ticket was gifted played no part in the content of my review or the star rating given.
CREATIVES:
Director - Niki McCretton; Executive Producer - Jane McGibbon; Producer - Ben Vieminckx; Design and Puppetry - Holly Miller; Music - Jeremy Bradford; Lighting Design and Production Management - Mark Webber; Performers - Donald Craigie and Jenny Harrold; Devising Team - Jake England Johns and Jenny Harrold; Co-Writers - Anna Murphy with Lola, Ivy, Kiki, Layton, Molly-Anna, Bella, Leland, Oliver and Kiera (Year 6 Children)
RUN TIME (approx):
60 minutes, with no interval
The Theatre Royal Plymouth is the principle home of the performing arts in the South West and is the largest and most attended regional producing theatre in the country. Their mission is to develop and deepen people's engagement with pioneering creativity in Plymouth and the South West, delivering experiences that spark delight, expression and fulfilment. The venue offers three performance spaces of various sizes, the largest being The Lyric which accommodates the big touring productions. The Drum and The Lab are smaller, intimate spaces and often offer pioneering productions.