Rose Theatre Kingston

Major new stage adaptation of Onjali Q Raúf’s children’s novel about a Syrian refugee boy called Ahmet who has come to the UK on his own, and whose classmates hatch a plan to reunite him with his parents before UK immigration policy deprives them of the chance to follow him. Adapted by Nick Ahad and directed by Monique Touko, it’s aimed at audiences ages seven and over.

Read our review of Our Town HERE. Michael Sheen recently put his screen career on hold in order to lead and launch the new Welsh National Theatre. But fear not! The immuntable law of theatre physics that states everything good will end up in London at some point anyway continues to hold true as the Welsh National Theatre’s inaugural production heads to the Rose Kingston after three engagement in the motherland. Our Town is, of course, the revered metatheatrical drama by Thorton Wilder, which arrestingly details life and death in the small American town of Grover’s Corners, a strange and sometimes cosmic journey that goes from wilfully banal to chillingly otherworldly. Heading an all-Welsh cast, Sheen will play the show’s Stage Manager, our guide and occasional particpant in the strangeness that follows. The play is directed by Francesca Goodridge, with the great Russell T Davies as creative associate (what if anything this means we’re unsure but he’ll probably do something fun).

This review is from May 2024. How scary should a crocodile be?  That for me was the issue at the heart of Suhayla El-Bushra and Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab’s jaunty mid-budget kids’ musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s picture book, which concerns a gang of timid jungle creatures who join forces to see off a crocodile who has decided that it absolutely must eat a human child. Emily Lim’s production is blessed with very eye-catching, very witty puppets from Toby Olié (whose lavish ‘Spirited Away’ designs can currently be seen in the West End). From the bug-eyed croc who assembles and disassembles in numerous clever ways as he adopts sundry disguises in an effort to lure a group of children into his mouth, to the amusingly realised children themselves (basically members of the ensemble with little puppet child bodies dangling absurdly under their heads), it looks great. Lim’s production has lots of lovely flourishes, from the smoke-filled bubbles that drift through the OAT at the beginning and end of the show, to the opportunity to pelt the crocodile with (foam) peanuts.  But while it’s certainly one of Dahl’s tamest stories (not to be confused with his  macabre poem ‘The Crocodile') something feels a little off about its total lack of peril. Malinda Parris is a game performer as the crocodile – a triple threat of sorts as she acts, sings and controls a complicated puppet – but she plays him as a bumbling, fruity-voiced panto villain who never seems very threatening, or likely to...