The Very Hungry Caterpillar @ The Majestic Theatre, Darlington

Since 1969 when it was first published, Eric Care’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar has enthralled children of each and every generation – the illustrations and style have become almost synonymous for educational and entertaining children’s books and set out a blueprint for others to follow.  Now his creations have been brought to life on stage by Jonathan Rockefeller and, given the reaction from one particularly young theatre goer, this is a smash hit.

The show actually covers 4 of Care’s stories, each engagingly told through the use of some amazing puppets, very vivid lighting and lots and lots of movement – my grand daughter who only recently turned 1 sat riveted for most of the show, loving the non-stop action – in fact she only got restless when one of her favourite characters left the stage, standing on mum’s lap to shout for the sea horse to come back.

There is some very clever ideas around painting pictures which then come to life, emerging on stage as full size puppets which just added to the magic of the show and ensured it kept tiny and slightly bigger minds watching and guessing what might happen next.

Of course, the star of the show is the caterpillar and the eponymous final story is a finale to send all the audience, young and old, on their way home feeling very well entertained.  There were many comments from parents & guardians afterwards who were surprised by just how engaging it was for the adults as well as the children – I guess we have all read, listened to (or in some cases, been) The Very Hungry Caterpillar in our lives.

The Majestic Theatre in Darlington is the perfect venue for this very colourful and visually engaging show; it is intimate, relaxed and ideal to cater for children who might otherwise feel a little intimidated by a more austere theatre.  That sense of relaxation spread to the parents too and as such, everyone was able to sit back, kick back and wallow in good old-fashioned story telling brought right up to date.

Under Milk Wood @ The Peoples Theatre, Heaton

Set in the small Welsh fishing village of Llareggub, the play follows the comings and goings of the inhabitants over 24 hours and, by giving us a glimpse into their lives – both peculiar and somehow peculiarly ordinary – it manages to say something universal about the human condition. It is also wondrously, uniquely Welsh.

The characters who populate the fictional village have become household names: the blind old seadog Captain Cat forever mourning his dead love Rosie Probert, the Rev Eli Jenkins greeting each morning in verse, Polly Garter with her list of lost paramours, Mr Pugh who dreams of poisoning Mrs Pugh, Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard and her two dead husbands, Dai Bread and his two live wives.

For this production, the Peoples Theatre return to the true roots of Thomas’s intent – it was written as a “play for voices” and, when recorded by the BBC in January 1954, it became an overnight success seldom seen before or since.  Here, the cast play the recording artists in the BBC studio, suitably surrounded by period technology and equipment and sporting a variety of costumes which, whilst serve to transport the audience back in time, never try to compete for attention away from the words.

The 1^st Voice, in the main the narrator, was originally taken by Richard Burton; his rich, velvety, foreboding voice hushing the listener to tip toe down through the town before rising through the day like the sun.  Not an easy task, following someone so embedded in the cultural heritage of this play but Frank Coles is simply brilliant – for anyone yet to hear (or see) Under Milk Wood, the opening monologue is one of literature’s most demanding pieces and yet, despite having script in hand, Frank delivers it with the rhyme and rhythm so perfect for Thomas’s work without once glancing at the text. 

Steve Hewitt & Mike Smith are the 2 other ‘narrators’, lynchpins around which the villagers’ lives are woven, intertwined and exposed serving to move the story along like pieces of flotsam on a sea bound stream.  The rest of the cast are wonderful at taking multiple parts, no, not parts, personalities; not only did they change voices, their whole beings morphed into the different characters as they approached the microphones.

This was my first time at the Peoples Theatre at Heaton, Newcastle and it was a lovely experience – very friendly staff, intimate theatre with great acoustics and definitely one I would love to visit again.