Hairy Maclary and Friends Show Featuring Slinky Malinki

Never believe the hype. Or rather, believe it, live it and then make up your own mind. The promise of a smash hit show in the Festival listings should have set off warning lights, which would only have been confirmed by the ginormous queue and the cluster of buggies parked outside George Square Theatre, when we arrived to see the Hairy Maclary and Friends Show Featuring Slinky Malinki. I mean, this is a bona fide classic, the original book even has its own App.

Unlike apparently most of the 400 members of the audience, we had only read the first of the Hairy Maclary series of twelve picture books by New Zealand author Lynley Dodd: "Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy". But we had also read "Slinky Malinki's Christmas Crackers", and the promise of Slinky Malinki being featured in the show was a bonus for Leo, who had loved the story and has a slight fetish for all cats.

The packed-out show features six of the books by Lynley Dodd, all set to music in traditional musical theatre fashion, with a backing piano track. The songs are well interpreted and the actors are engaging, but be warned, the lyrics are true to the original text and, as such, they include long words which are not part of the average pre-schooler vocabulary. In context of course, the play makes perfect sense and none of the boys had any trouble understanding the plot lines. Additional puns are also added for the enjoyment of adults.

Hairy Maclary show on stage!

Audience participation was well received by most of the audience, but involved sequences which could only possibly be mastered by school children. Some of the animal costumes were also slightly scary for very small children, although I have to admit that the English Sheepdog Muffin Maclay was extremely cute and likeable. Overall, I thought the Universal age rating was a bit optimistic, but for school children already familiar with the stories, this is surely a terrific show.

Julien's scariest bit: Scarface Claw the scariest tomcat around
Leo's favourite bits: the promotional balloons we were given before going in to the show and Slinky Malinki sneaking around
Mum's favourite bit: the story of Zachary Quack - this was hilarious
Julien's overall rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Father Christmas Needs a Wee

We went to see Father Christmas Needs a Wee, a musical show put on by TaleGate Theatre,  at the intimate venue TheSpace in Jeffrey Street. The counting rhyme picture book by Nicholas Allan published by Random House was set to music and acted out by the two actors posing as Elfie the helping elf and Father Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Father Christmas's task of delivering the presents goes slightly wrong when he gets side-tracked by all the food and drink left out for him and develops an urge to go to the bathroom, which unfortunately cannot be relieved immediately. You can read the picture book online here.

The witty lyrics of the songs and entertaining choreographies were  probably lost on my children, but this musical show was extremely lively and well performed, with  something for everyone. Elfie was loud and slightly pantomime-like, while Father Christmas was very believable. Expect plenty of audience participation and interaction (including dancing), giant singing mince pies and the hunt for the key to the toilet.

Father Christmas and Elfie look for the key to open the loo

Julien's favourite bit: When Father Christmas goes for a wee for a long time [hearing him go made Julien laugh out loud]
Julien's least favourite bit: When Father Christmas was so desperate he threatened to have a wee in Julien's Spiderman cap
Mum's favourite bit: Mincey P, the singing mince pie puppet

Julien's rating: 5 stars (out of 5)