Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield – until 22nd June 2023
Reviewed by Sophie Dodworth
4****
Winnie the Pooh is in Sheffield on his forever hunt for honey, with his team of cute friends for all the children to come and see. Rockefeller Productions brings us this musical stage adaptation, in partnership with ROYO and in association with Disney Theatrical Productions. And what a fab job they have done. They opened in New York and smashed records there, so now are on the UK and Ireland tour.
The set is a typical Winnie scene, with trees, bees, home grown vegetables, ruffage and Christopher Robin opening the first scene. Follow the friends in Hundred Acre Wood as they make some new adventures and mischief together.
Using impressive life-size puppetry, the talented cast have quite a task on their hands. Especially Winnie played by Harry Boyd who has the most beautiful sounding, instantly recognisable Winnie voice. He operates the puppet on the stage constantly for the first 35 minutes (ish) while stooping over, his back must take quite a beating for this! But he executes all his lines and the songs perfectly. All the puppets in the production, were designed and made within the company by a team of talented artists and crafts people. Each puppet being built many times over to ensure they had the right look and correct movement. It really does add such magic to this show having intricately detailed puppets.
All the cast have fantastic musical theatre voices and some get to showcase these, with some of the great uplifting songs included. Some of the original songs written by Robert and Richard Sherman are featured: ‘Winnie the Pooh’, ‘The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers’ and ‘A Rather Blustery Day’.
All the cast are just great but a couple that need an extra mention are Laura Bacon for swapping between roles and having such a sweet singing voice, including featuring in some of the wonderful harmonies and Robbie Noonan for playing Tigger. He has energy oozing out of him which just brings Tigger to life.
A really cute, family show which evokes sweet memories of childhood.