Skitterbang Island Polka Theatre

Today we took another trip to Wimbledon to visit our lovely Polka Theatre! We absolutely love it there and it is well worth the hour long journey with multiple changes to get to it! We have never been disappointed and today was, of course, no exception!

Today we visited the Adventure theatre which is a performance room just off the main foyer that plays host to smaller shows for, very often, a younger audience. Skitterbang Island is aimed at the 3-5 year olds so Jimmy is a little young for it by their standards but he thoroughly enjoyed it all the same and Florence thought it was better than Moomins (and she loved Moomins). I adore the Adventure Theatre, the way everyone sits on the floor (there are some benches round the edges for adults if needed) and it makes you really feel like you are a part of the show.

Marie (voiced and puppeted – if that’s a word – by Natalie Raybould) is a little girl who gets lost at sea with her Uncle Edvard and they drift off on an adventure which sees her make friends with the gorgeously sweet Skitterbang. A friendly monster with wings and rabbit feet and ears who likes music. His cave is filled with treasures he has found drifted up and when he makes friends with Marie a lovely story is played out.

The puppets are delightfully used with some extremely clever tricks to make the story feel magical as well as look it. The cast, who sing their way through the story, are wonderful in expression and skill and their voices are beautiful. We loved every second of Skitterbang Island and when we saw actress Natalie (who looks a lot like Katy from ‘I Can Cook’ so we were immediately drawn to her) feeding her sweet baby in the restaurant afterwards we felt a bit star struck. Florence wanted to say how much we enjoyed it but was too shy. She has talked about the show non stop since and been singing the songs and as I write this review with a big smile on my face I know exactly how she feels.

Watch the trailer here and you will see why we enjoyed Skitterbang Island so much!

We definitely want to see more from the creative team behind the show. Little Angel Theatre are specialists in puppetry and live animation – they certainly know their stuff! We can’t wait for more at Polka!

For a pre-schooler summer holiday activity this is perfect because it is 45 minutes long and then you can play in the gardens or play spaces and enjoy lunch on their gorgeous train just as we did today! Unfortunately for us the play garden was closed for maintenance (we’ve never been before when this has been the case) and we didn’t get any of our usual snaps in the play area but here’s one of us on the lunch train in the restaurant, still high on the wonder of Skitterbang Island!