It takes a very brave production team to take CBeebies most popular TV show, completely recast all the familiar characters and then keep a very discerning audience, of the show’s most ardent fans, engaged for over an hour and a half, but the Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company have taken the bull by the horns and the result is a triumphant homage to the TV series and a superbly entertaining production.
The secret is in the fact that they have engaged the services of the original creators of the Grandpa in my Pocket TV show, Mellie Buse and Jan Page, because, as they obviously love their character dearly, they have ensured that the stage show does not try and copy the TV version. Instead they have created the ultimate all-singing, all-dancing, non-stop fun, dressing-up tribute show around.
The six actors start by telling us how much they love “Grandpa” and how much they love to dress up and act out the stories. This immediately removes any comparison with the TV actors and ensures that the audience are on-board with the whole “dressing-up and having fun” theme.
The cast members each decide which of the characters they would like to play and, through a series of superbly quick costume changes, they manage to introduce us to the eleven characters that will feature in the pirate-themed story, “Teamwork”.
Javan Hughes takes just one part, but that part is the central character of Jason Mason, the boy who has to take responsibility for his incredible shrinking Grandpa. His wide eyed innocence and frustration at the scrapes his Grandpa gets into are conveyed very well and, from the very beginning, the audience warm to him. His attempts to keep Grandpa’s shrinking ability secret are both funny and fresh.
Grandpa is played by Robin Simpson, and a succession of various sized puppets depicting him in various stages of shrinking, with a couple of fully shrunken versions that appear throughout most of the show. All of the cast are accomplished puppeteers and this also helps to engage even the smallest children in the audience.
The pirate theme comes from Horatio Heave-Ho, played by Dale Superville, the bank manager in the seaside town of Sunnysands. He has dreams of being a pirate and he enlists the help of Sam Worboys as Mr Mentor the Inventor, who dresses in the most amazing yellow tailcoated suit with multi coloured stripes. He invents a treasure seeking machine which, after a few teething troubles, they then decide to take on an adventure.
Horatio soon encourages more of the characters to join him on a sailing expedition to an island that is rumoured to be a haven for treasure. So, without delay, Jason, his Great Aunt Loretta (Lizzie Franks), his sister Jemima (Ebony Feare), Mr Whoops the toy shop owner (Robin Simpson in his other role) together with the shrunken Grandpa, the treasure seeker and a big picnic (including Loretta’s sardine and strawberry trifle) head off in a boat.
During the interval the set quickly changes from the familiar lighthouse and beach huts of Sunnysands to the “treasure island” where most of the rest of the tale takes place. As happens in every one of the TV episodes, the shrunken Grandpa almost gets discovered several times and yet, somehow, also manages to become the hero of the tale – in this production by sailing back to the mainland, in a biscuit tin, to get help when disaster strikes for the explorers.
It is impossible to pick out a star of the show, with all the cast performing some amazingly quick costume changes, singing, dancing, operating various puppets and acting their socks off, in fact this is the epitome of an ensemble performance, which thrilled the children and even managed to captivate most of the adults in the audience as well. The stage version of Grandpa is a credit to the creative team, for keeping the magic, and is yet another triumph for the Nottingham Playhouse crew.
Five stars *****
