Tag Archives: Axel Scheffler

A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE

★★★

Little Angel Studios

A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE

Little Angel Studios

★★★

“The set and puppets stay true to Axel Scheffler’s always beautiful illustrations”

A Squash and a Squeeze is the first book that the rhyming author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler created together, and here at the Little Angel Studios is a staged musical adaptation of the classic tale.

I asked the little girl next to me if she knew A Squash and a Squeeze and she told me it was all about friends squeezing into a little house together. The story has now been adapted for the stage by Barb Jungr and Samantha Lane, with music and lyrics by Jungr.

The show has stretched out the compact rhyming picture book to an almost too long one hour show for young children.

“Wise old man, won’t you help me, please, My house is a squash and a squeeze”. The wise old man knows, fill it with a flappy, scratchy, noisy crowd of farmyard animals and when you push them all out, you’ll be amazed at how big your house feels!

At the end of each scene, the aforementioned little girl, did ask is that the end? I love young critics.

The set and puppets stay true to Axel Scheffler’s always beautiful illustrations.

A simple and delightful set by Kate Bunce with a Wendy house that opens out into the inside of the old lady’s house, showing how squashed and squeezed they all become as she takes in more and more of her farm animals.

The puppets by Maia Kirkman-Richards are genius for both young and old to enjoy – but almost underused. Taking Scheffler’s wonderful vision a step further on from the original illustrations and bringing them to life on the stage, the puppets are an innovative delight with the hilarious handheld cat created from a fur-ball of a multi-coloured ball of wool, the popping-eyed handheld chicken who does lose feathers, the goat made from a wheelbarrow and the pig built with an apple crate body that gets filled with all the food it guzzles! The pièce de résistance though must be the Friesian cow made from a yoke holding two wooden buckets, one of which has udders hanging from underneath. But why there were only three udders is still a mystery to us all – I did double check that Scheffler hadn’t drawn it thus – no.

Each farmyard animal has its own upbeat song as they are enticed into the little house. And it certainly was a squash and a squeeze with them all inside! Barb Jungr’s music and lyrics are fun young children’s musical theatre, and as a renowned jazz singer and cabaret artist it was great to see her diversity.

The lead puppeteer Mark Esaias does sterling work as the many characters but syncing his goat’s mouth to his singing might need a teeny bit of tightening up. Both the wise man Gilbert Taylor and Ruth Calkin as the old lady, take their turns with the puppets – there are five to handle at once with a full house of farmyard animals!

Calkin finds just the right balance to create a warm, affronted and a despairingly funny old woman, and in her costume, she looked just like the picture book had come to life.

This stage adaptation introduces the wise old man (Taylor) as a silly billy character who makes “easy-peasy solutions”. He is certainly not the expected Scheffler creation with a white beard, hat and long black coat – maybe it was decided that character looked too austerely Germanic.

However, the easy-peasy solution solver arrives squashing and squeezing through the young audience and then proceeds to sing a song using his Walkman cassette player with the cassette tape getting stuck and needing to be rewound with a pen borrowed from the audience. A strange creative decision, and completely unnecessary to the story. Who in the audience, bar me, understood what he was talking about and doing – little girl critic said to her mummy what is that? – And mummy didn’t know either.

I also did not warm to the wise man character hitting a wasp’s nest on the side of the house with a bat and getting badly stung……that’s silly, not wise and not in the book either – even though the children laughed.

I was rather shocked to see missing from the online programme notes, a biography credit for Axel Scheffler because visually (apart from the wise old man), this production is very much thanks to his illustrations. However clever the author Julia Donaldson is (and her biog is there), a picture book needs those wonderous and creative illustrations – and so does this adaptation.

The cast work very hard throughout – and with three shows a day singing and dancing and puppetry and an audience full of excited children they work up a good sweat.

Did you enjoy A Squash and a Squeeze I ask my young critic. Mmmm…yes.



A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE

Little Angel Studios

Reviewed on 7th March 2025

by Debbie Rich

Photography by Suzi Corker

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed by Debbie:

ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG | ★★★ | PARK THEATRE | March 2025
BIRDSONG | ★★ | ALEXANDRA PALACE | February 2025
AN ALPINE SYMPHONY | ★★★★ | ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL | February 2025
PRIDE & PREJUDICE (SORT OF) | ★★★ | THEATRE ROYAL WINDSOR | February 2025
FIGARO: AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL | ★★ | LONDON PALLADIUM | February 2025
SLAVA’S SNOWSHOW | ★★★★ | HAROLD PINTER THEATRE | December 2024
A CHORAL CHRISTMAS | ★★★★ | SINFONIA SMITH SQUARE | December 2024
TUTU | ★★★ | PEACOCK THEATRE | October 2024
JOYCE DIDONATO SINGS BERLIOZ | ★★★★ | ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL | September 2024
ABIGAIL’S PARTY | ★★★★ | THEATRE ROYAL STRATFORD EAST | September 2024

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Stick Man – 3.5 Stars

Stick Man

Leicester Square Theatre

Reviewed – 21st October 2018

★★★½

“the whole cast consistently kept a sparky energy and played well to the audience”

 

Stick Man, one of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s many much-loved children stories, is now enjoying a stage adaptation by Freckle Productions, in a show that lifts the charm and appeal off the page and delivers it to families across a sizzling forty five minute romp.

The plot sees the titular Stick Man (Jack Benjamin) taken on a perilous adventure after being swept away from his stick family by a dog (Kate Malyon, also playing everything from a swan to a very aggressive schoolgirl) during a jog in the park; he keeps getting used and abused in different scenarios until he ends up in need of some serious help to be reunited with stick wife and children. Euan Wilson rounds out the cast, chiefly providing music (composed by Benji Bower) on all manner of instruments that provides a gleeful timbre to the action on stage. The interplay between Wilson on the saxophone and Malyon’s swan was particularly enjoyable, although the whole cast consistently kept a sparky energy and played well to the audience.

Stick Man employs a number of everyday objects in its design (Katie Skyes) that allows for the cast and director Mark Kane to let them ooze creativity when used in performance, such as a roll of blue wallpaper wrapped between two cast members acting as a river, or using umbrellas to depict a raging ocean. The results are visually delectable, and keep the audience constantly engaged as to what innovative use of regular paraphernalia will be utilised next.

The style of the show takes a number of cues from pantomime, featuring a chase through the audience, a game of catch with a beach ball, and – yes – even a ‘they’re behind you’ moment. This works wonders to invite the audience into the story, and it is telling that the sections which did not feature any participation are the ones where the audience grew restless, giving the feeling that Stick Man should have embraced a few more opportunities to include the audience.

The source material has some issues if you’re looking closely, such as that the entire journey Stick Man goes on doesn’t see him learn anything or change, and there’s no especially interesting lesson to take from the story. Crucially, however, by and large the children adored it, and were uncontainably engrossed by the show’s end. Parents looking for an alternative to the usual panto this Christmas will find a lot on offer here.

Reviewed by Tom Francis

Photography by Paul Blakemore

 

Leicester Theatre

Stick Man

Leicester Square Theatre until 6th January

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Murder, She Didn’t Write | ★★★ | February 2018
Sh*t-faced Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice | ★★★★ | April 2018
Sh*t-faced Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet | ★★★★ | June 2018
Murder She Didn’t Write | ★★★★ | September 2018
Sh*t-faced Showtime: Oliver With a Twist! | ★★★ | September 2018

 

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