★★★★

“playful, imaginative and full of heart”

Tall Stories returns with another charming adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s much-loved picture book, The Gruffalo’s Child. Directed by company co-founder Olivia Jacobs, this production remains faithful to the rhythmic storytelling of the original text while adding Tall Stories’ signature playfulness and audience engagement.

From the start, the show leads us straight into the “deep dark wood,” following the Gruffalo’s Child as she wanders in search of the legendary Big Bad Mouse. Isla Shaw’s rotating set—cleverly revealing and concealing the Gruffalo—offers one of the most effective visual surprises, echoing the book’s iconic illustrations.

The cast of three brings great energy to the stage. Hannah Miller gives the Gruffalo’s Child a sweet, curious presence that young audiences love. Joe Lindley takes on the Gruffalo and all the woodland predators, shifting between Snake, Owl and Fox with strong physicality and comic timing. Sabrina Simohamed shines as both the Narrator and the Mouse, transforming from one to the other with remarkable clarity using only subtle costume changes. Her switch into the tiny Mouse is one of the standout moments of the show.

Tall Stories has always understood how to involve children, and this production breaks the fourth wall with confidence. The Snake welcome the audience as party guests, the Owl swoops across the stage flapping large wings, and Mr Fox leads a lively dance (Morag Cross) that has the whole auditorium smiling. These moments give young theatregoers a sense of real participation rather than simply watching from their seats.

Some elements could be strengthened; the Snake costume leaves little room for imagination and caused a few children to whisper “Who’s that?” during the scene. And while the appearance of the “Big Bad Mouse” shadow is a key moment from the book, the staging here feels brief and slightly underpowered, leaving the audience wanting a bit more build-up.

Musically, Jon Fiber and Andy Shaw’s songs keep the story moving with gentle humour and catchy rhythms. The final visual image—Gruffalo holding his child—is a touching and satisfying end, followed by a cheerful closing song that sends families out with warm smiles.

The venue’s scale occasionally works against the show’s potential for immersion—a more intimate space might have drawn the audience deeper into the magic. But the storytelling remains engaging throughout. The Gruffalo’s Child continues Tall Stories’ reputation for delivering high-quality children’s theatre: playful, imaginative and full of heart.

Overall, The Gruffalo’s Child succeeds as a clear, rhyming tale brought to life with care and consistency. It may not reinvent the form, but it honours its source with heart—and for young viewers witnessing theatre for the first time, that can be a wonderful gift.

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.

THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD

Lyric Theatre

★★★★

“playful, imaginative and full of heart”

THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD

Lyric Theatre then UK Tour continues

Reviewed on 29th November 2025

by Portia Yuran Li

Photography by Charles Flint (from previous production)

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD

THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD

THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD

A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE

Little Angel Studios

★★★

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