Review: Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom Live brings magical tricks to stage for young fans

‘I like Lucy’

I’m not sure how many times I heard Baby Girl say this on Sunday, but she somehow seemed to manage to randomly drop it into every conversation after we had been to Richmond Theatre to see Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom Live to review.

The stage adaptation of children’s TV show Ben & Holly was a definite highlight for Baby Girl over the bank holiday weekend, and waving a Holly windmill around for an hour and a half together with the rest of the crowd, mainly consisting of preschoolers and over-excited parents, was clearly a brilliant way to start a Sunday morning.

In the show, Ben, an elf, and Holly, a fairy princess, help Gaston the Ladybird clean up his cave before they all go with tooth fairy Nanny Plum to collect a tooth from Lucy in the big world. When Lucy wakes up and wants to visit the tiny fairy land with them, Nanny Plum does a magic trick to shrink her and they return home, where they all help cure King Thistle’s cold, plan a surprise birthday party and make jelly–a lot of jelly.

Colourful costumes with masks and giant ladybird Gaston on wheels helped make the show come to life, and the young audience seemed to enjoy the many action songs with easy-to-follow moves. Parents were eager to join in, and at one point I found myself playing air-piano and singing ‘pia-pia-piiano’ while Baby Girl was simply staring at the actors on stage with big eyes.

With fairies and elves, magic recipes, smoke and flying puppets, Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom Live is a colourful, charming and lively show ideal for young theatre-goers.

Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom Live is on tour this year, and the next South West London venue is Wimbledon New Theatre 11-12 August. The show is also playing in Guildford on 10-11 June, and in a number of other venues around England. The running time is 1 hour and 30 minutes, which includes an interval

Tags: Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom Live, Children's theatre, Elf, Fairy, Guildford, London, Magic, Review, Richmond, Richmond Theatre, Stage adaptation, Theatre, TV, Wimbledon