Room on the Broom Review
Room on the Broom Review
My boy & I were honored to be invited to The Orchard Theatre in Dartford, Kent to see Julia Donaldson’s Room on the Broom and I need to get straight right now that this show is every bit of fabulous as I was imagining!
When my boy was small, we made it our mission to collect as many Julia Donaldson books as possible, we love them so much that our boy could recite The Gruffalo, Stick Man and What the Ladybird Heard by the age of three years old! Now I have to say that Room on the Broom is my absolute favourite, so forget the boy for one second, I WAS EXCITED!!
We have been to see a couple of Julia Donaldson’s touring shows and what is so special is how the plays always stick to the beautiful script of the stories, but manage to add much more without it being far away from the original at all. It doesn’t matter if you are looking at puppets or real people, you instantly recognise the characters and from the second the play begins they have already won your heart.
When we sit and read with our son, the feeling is always special when reading a Julia Donaldson story, the beautiful illustrations, the many wonderful characters, the lovely and heartfelt rhymes that you read aloud with your child, then taking your child to see these stories come to life is nothing short of magical. As a parent, watching your child get excited about knowing what’s coming, seeing them smiling from ear to ear, for the child, just knowing who everyone is, joining in with some lines that they know so well … Going with your child to see any Julia Donaldson show is absolutely precious.
Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler’s story is wonderfully brought to life by Tall Stories, where the Witch is on a mission to take down the bad dragon, who keeps eating the Witches, but along her travels she makes some new friends who decide to tag along on the journey.
Meet Cat, Dog, Bird and Frog, the Witches new flying friends, can they all fit on the broomstick? Of course they can! … Are they too heavy? Yes, of course they are! - “The broom snapped in two!”
After crashing to the ground the Witch met with the Dragon, quite a funny, Welsh Dragon in fact! Were the children scared? Actually not at all. The Dragon cleverly came across friendly and cute, but he still made it clear his favourite meal was “Witch & chips for his tea”
The set was quite simple, but worked really well, the stage was set as woodland and nothing more was needed at all. the puppetry was well thought out and cleverly managed between the casting of four, the songs were fun and were all about the characters, or the props like the broomstick. The story was interactive and encouraged some audience participation, which the children (and adults) clearly enjoyed.
The play is really aimed for pre-school aged children, but my little one has recently turned six years old and he loved it. I think the guidance I can give is if your child enjoys live shows and is happy to sit still for the hour to watch, then your child is old enough, if your child still loves reading Julia Donaldson stories, then they are not too old at all!
My little one said after the show …
“The show is better than the book because it’s the same, but stretched out, so we get loads more!”
Room on the Broom is on at The Orchard Theatre in Dartford, Kent until Tuesday 26th March 2019, so please see here to go to their website for more information or to book tickets.
The Orchard Theatre have many wonderful family shows all throughout the year and I can highly recommend this lovely venue.