musicals – the joy of five

One adult and four children in a theatre! I have to admit I was wondering what was crossing my mind as I boarded the train on Sunday morning to go and watch The Tiger Who Came To Tea.

We arrived after a relatively pain free journey to be greeted at the doors and lead to out seats at the beautiful Lyric Theatre.

With our tiger souvenirs in hand and snacks at the ready the show began and the children’s attention was immediately drawn to the stage.

The older ones already knew the story and could preemt the arrival of each lovable character as they appeared; and the younger two were glued to the stage to see what was going to happen next.

The story of a mother and daughters day at home that is turned upside down by the arrival of a tiger making a visit for his tea is kept to throughout the play with some catchy songs and dances added to make the production even more special.

There was lots of interaction with the audience and mine all loved joining in with the catchy songs, counting down on the clock until each visitor arrives at the door and taking to their feet to join in with dancing.

I had a range of ages from thirteen to nearly two and they all thoroughly enjoyed the show. My biggest worry was my youngest who normally can’t sit still for more than five minutes but I needn’t have worried at all as he watched and joined in with the whole show without a murmur.

The show is only running until the 10th January and I would highly recommend giving your little ones a Christmas treat to remember by taking them along to experience the wonderful adaptation of a real children’s classic.
We were gifted these tickets for the purpose of this review and they are all my own honest opinions.

“Santa I know him!” One of the lines from the iconic Will Ferrell movie ‘Elf’ that I drive my children mad with by shreaking out several times a day from the end of November!

For our family this film is played many times over the festive period and has always been a firm favourite of ours, so you can imagine my excitement when I found Elf The Musical was hitting the West End this year.

I was asked to come along to see what I thought of the show and bought my sister along who is not a fan of the film at all!

We started our evening getting festive with a glass of mulled wine or two and some massively calorific but yummy food before we set off to see what the Dominion Theatre had to offer.

Upon entering we were greeting by jolly, festively dressed staff selling merchandise in the beautifully decorated foyer filled with hundreds of people full of the Christmas spirit.

We sat in our seats just as Santa took to the stage. A jolly character that children could warm to with a a bit a adult humour thrown in too.

Buddy The Elf took to the stage and was the happy, carefree, loveable character that I was hoping to see. The orphaned boy that had been raised in the North Pole by Santa, bought up as one of his elves and then sent to New York to find his birth father engaged with the audience wonderfully and really captured my heart.

The story has been converted well from the film but as expected some changes have been made. Kimberly Walsh played the part of Buddy’s hard faced girlfriend really well and it was just a shame that she was not in more of the scenes.

For me the reasoning behind the play is to portray the true meaning of Christmas which is spending quality time with your loved ones and the wonderful feeling you get from believing in the magic of it all.

This show would be perfect for the whole family as there are upbeat songs and colourful scenes with plenty of dancing to keep little ones amused and lots of witty humour to entertain the adults.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole show along with my very sceptical sister and the spectacular surprise at the end really topped it off for me. I will keep this a secret as not to spoil it for those of you wanting to see for yourselves!

Tag: musicals

The Tiger Who Came To Tea Review

Elf The Musical Review