Once Upon A World At JW3!

As a freelance writer and blogger, my job invites me to see a fair amount of theatre, mainly of the family variety but as a trained actress myself with a love for the genre, I tend to accept any invitation to review. It’s a real privilege to be asked my opinion and to be able to give it, even more so when I get to take my children along for the ride and their enjoyment turns my work into a real pleasure. So, we see some good things, and we see some performances I’d rather not watch again, this is life… There will always be something for everyone, but not all things will appeal to all. However, I really think, adult, child, whoever you are, whatever you like, “Once Upon A World” will buck the trend and make all eyes smile.

Israel’s leading puppet and visual theatre company, The Train Theatre, is performing “Once Upon A World” at JW3 this weekend and my word, am I pleased Posie and I got to see it?! The sbhow is incredibly beautiful with a real message of positivity towards looking after our world but within it, something very special that you don’t get to see often happens. It’s so flipping clever, the way the puppets are mastered by the two actors is a visual wonder to behold and although so simply put together you wonder how anyone’s mind could have created such amazing puppets, which work so well.

Follow the little penguin in his egg, from Antarctica, as he travels the world, hatching and being introduced to other creatures, and environments, learning along the way how to look after the world!

The music, the movement, the performers, the puppets… All of it absolutely thrilling to watch and without doubt the best thing I’ve seen in children’s theatre in a good long while. It’s immediately moved into my top three productions (I don’t add in or move out on the regular), the other two being The Elephantom which we saw at The National Theatre back in 2014, and Slava’s Snow Show which I saw with Florence about a decade ago and have never been able to pip from my top three. How long will “Once Upon A World” stay on my top list? Oh, I can’t imagine anything else coming along very soon that even comes close, there’s loads of brilliant children’s theatre about (thank goodness) but to reach something this masterful is a very infrequent discovery!

Tickets for the show cost £12 for children and £15 for adults.

If you do get to see this show at JW3 this weekend (I really do encourage it), then do also take advantage of the beach! Yep, that’s right, a pop up beach in the heart of Hampstead, London!

Open to all, all summer long, and totally FREE, children can enjoy the sand and water play with newly met friends, or ones you gather into your gang for a visit. As the beach is under a band-new Dorfman Piazza, it’s completely weatherproof (which clearly we need – come on sunshine!) in the UK!

After watching the wonderful “Once Upon A World”, Posie and I spent 2 and a half hours playing with the garden games on the beach, splashing in the pool and sitting in the rare bits of sunshine we were gifted in London on Thursday! With table tennis tables and deck chairs surrounding the beach, as well as a big screen for the tennis (or whatever else might be on), it felt like were on holiday with the delicious smells of croissants from the cafe and the delighted sounds of children playing.

The beach is a brilliant place to while away some time, thank you JW3 for having us as your guests this week, we came away a very happy couple of girls!

The Beach is open until the 1st of September, is FREE and open to all.

Collaboration.