Stick Man Live – Leicester Square Theatre 2018!
You are literally NEVER too old (or too young) to enjoy Stick Man at the theatre in central London. We’ve seen it nearly every year since Florence and Jimmy were tiny and never, ever, tire of it. There’s something about those books by Julia Donaldson which lend themselves to the stage so terribly well that you just couldn’t possibly not some away smiling from ear to ear and somehow even the illustrations of Axel Sheffler are brought to life in front of your very eyes! Freckle Productions sure do know how to keep bringing us the goods year after year without changing a single thing (because they absolutely shouldn’t – the show is perfection) and I’m so pleased to say that they continue to delight young audiences for 2018 making it an eighth year of Stick Man finding his way back to the family tree at the Leicester Square Theatre!
This year was very special for us as it was the first time we took Raffie and seing the show through his little eyes for the first time made me actually well up. He pointed and he clapped and he bopped away to the music – oh what a joy!
We headed down to London on Sunday with the Modern Mummy gang and Stick Man was our very first port of call for our annual friends festive day out – have to say it was the perfect way to kick off the festivities of Christmas and by the time the curtain is almost ready to up, with Father Christmas on stage having reunited Stick Man to his family tree we were all feeling rather Christmassy indeed!
I think what makes this show so special is the fact that almost all children now the story so well and the book, which takes minutes to read, somehow has been mastered into a whole show which lasts for 60 minutes of pure pleasure without an interval. A perfect introduction for tiny ones (recommended ages are for 3+ but mine, including Raffie now, have been going since they were babies) and with lots of audience participation mingled into the music and performance it’s just magical. I love the fact there are only 3 performers, a musician, Stick Man and a girl playing all the characters Stick Man meets after he gets lost on a jog away from the family tree.
The way the props are used to create things like snow, sand and water are so incredibly clever and the sound effects are just beautiful played by the musician who also jumps in to characters. Puppets of Stick Man, his stick lady love and stick children 1, 2 and 3 are used with an actor behind them to portray the emotions Stick Man is feeling. My word this is some thoughtful and interesting acting and we absolutely LOVE it!
Check out this clip of the show on YouTube!
We couldn’t recommend this highly enough, I’d go back to see this show over and over and IF I HAD to choose one show of all the very many we are lucky enough to review every year I can hand on heart say this is my favourite. That goes for ALL theatre be it adult or child. If you read my blog a lot then you will know how much we go to the theatre so you will understand this is extremely high praise and it is entirely deserved! The only slightly tricky issue is that the Leicester Square Theatre is down a considerable flight of stairs so my best advice would be to go sans buggy IF you can. If you can’t then the theatre staff have always been on hand to help everyone and they just make space for the buggies once at the bottom in a really efficient way.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this show!
If you would like to cacth Stick Man Live in the West End this season (and we do strongly encourage it if you can) then it’s running at the Leicester Square Theatre now until the 6th of January 2019. There is a signed performance on the 24th of December at 12.15 and babes in arms go free to all performances. Ticket prices start at £16 with a family ticket (at least one adult per party) costing £75. To book please see the box office on the Leicester Square Theatre website.
We were invited to see the show as guests of the theatre.
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