Theatre Royal, Nottingham – until Saturday 24th May 2025
Reviewed by Chris Jarvis
3***
Anyone under the age of 30 and those with children or grandchildren under that age, is likely to recognise this title as the first of over thirty children’s books written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Loved by children for their quirky subjects and wonderful illustrations, these stories are often written in lyrical rhyming verse with lots of repetition. Children join in with quotes they instantly remember – often the whole story word for word – as parents settle them for the night!
I was delighted to be offered this review so I could invite my beautiful ‘nearly 5yr old’ granddaughter Livie along to give her professional opinion! This adaptation by Barb Jungr and director Samantha Lane, opens with a simple set showing a small house and the wise old man from the original story leaving the stage to interact with the audience. He was clearly chatting with children, but the rest of the audience couldn’t hear this interaction, so it didn’t feel like the performance had started until he returned to the stage to sing a song about his company called “Easy Peasy Solutions”.
In this story of an old woman who is struggling with the size of her home and feeling that there is “no room to swing a cat”, we meet a grey cat who is ‘worked’ by a farmhand who quickly becomes the third person in this story of the old woman who seeks the advice of the ‘wise old man’, depicted here by the salesman owner of “Easy Peasy Solutions”, when she becomes overwhelmed by the ‘smallness’ of her home.
Using the rhyming verse from the original story she asks –
“Wise old man, won’t you help me please?
My house is a squash and a squeeze”
I would have liked to see the cast involve the children in the audience here as most would have known the verse as well as the cast!
The wise old man doesn’t really have a solution but comes up with the next thing he sees – her hen peeping out of the hen house – and suggests the somewhat crazy idea of moving it into her home!
A wonderful set designed by Kate Bunce is just like Axel Scheffler’s illustrations and looks like a child’s ‘Wendy house’. The roof and walls open to reveal the inside, as the hen causes havoc flying around and damaging everything in its path.
When this clearly isn’t helping the wise old man responds to her repeated pleas for more space as he works his way through all her animals, suggesting that her goat, then her pig and finally her cow move into her home. Each animal has their own song, written by Barb Jungr, and the house opens to show them moving in, then closes leaving the audience imagining the chaos these animals are causing!
Between each new animal entering her home the verse was adapted as in the story –
“It was titchy for three and it’’s teeny for four.
Even the pig in the larder agrees
my house is a squash and a squeeze!
Wise old man, won’t you help me please”
Livie was with the old woman word for word, and I was again sorry that the audience wasn’t invited to take part – even I knew the words!
The animal puppets designed by Maia Kirkman-Richards were amazing! I particularly liked the pig, but Livie just loved them all and couldn’t choose a favourite! Having recently watched the amazing production of War Horse at TRCH with surrealistic horses, I went for the pig! Maybe realism doesn’t matter when you’re ‘nearly 5’!
The 3 actors, Ruth Calkin, Mark Esaias and Chris Dobson were also puppeteers taking turns to bring the cat, hen, goat, pig and cow to life using many subtle but lifelike movements, as well as the extravagant and crazy. They were all very comical and ‘over the top’ the way young children love. My vision of the wise old man with a walking stick and long grey beard as illustrated in the book was tested, but maybe that doesn’t matter to the 3-8yr olds this performance was aimed at, as Livie made no mention of it.