Bing Live! has just been at Birmingham Repertory Theatre and it was fantastic. 75 minutes of Bingsters being able to watch their favourite Bing characters pretend, dress up and sing songs whilst also teaching them about the theatre.
Because, Going to the theatre… IT’S A BING THING.
The Rep is perfect for children and families alike as they ensure that there is a programme of high quality shows for everyone. Children are especially being treated this year, with Bing Live and also In The Night Garden coming soon.
The tickets at The Rep are considerably cheaper than many of the other theatres showing these shows AND the quality of the theatre is high, if not higher than many of the ones on tour.
With the fantastic well tiered seating, all ages are able to see the stage, regardless of who is sat in front of them. There’s no need for booster seats.
Bing Live was great.
We arrived at The Rep and had a look at the merchandise stand in the foyer. Matilda eagerly wanted a giant Bing and with it being pretty similar to the retail price in the stores (£17) we treated her and Jemima to one to share. There were other things you could choose from that were much more economically priced including t-shirts and colourful battery powered lights.
We then headed to take our seats, ten minutes before the show started which was perfect for us and the show commenced 2 minutes after its planned start time. This was mainly as many parents had left finding their seats until the very last minute, obviously worried their little ones would get bored waiting for the show to start.
The show started with Bing jumping out from behind the red stage curtain, saying hello to all of the audience. All of the children in the audience were cheering, excited to see their favourite television character right before their eyes.
Now, I bet you’re expecting that Bing was a person in a character costume? No, not in this stage show. It was great to see that Bing was a decent sized puppet, controlled by a man right behind him, making him move and speaking for him. It might sound a little odd, but it was brilliant and before long you kind of forget these adults.
This Bing Live stage show was all about introducing children to the Theatre. Talk of the red curtains, the job role of a Director and the actors and actresses.
All of the well loved Bing characters came onto the stage to join Bing including Flop, Sula, Pando and Coco.
There was singing, dancing, waving and giggling in the audience.
And just before the interval, we heard all about Bing needed to catch the toilet train. Which I thought was very cleverly done.
I headed along to the toilets at the interval and it was good to see their was no queuing.
Ice creams were on sale during the interval (£3 each) and we all had one each. I had a raspberry sorbet, my husband had salted caramel and the girls both had a strawberry ice cream each.
The first half of the show had introduced the theatre to the children and the second half of the show was where Pando appeared and we saw the show within the show. If that makes sense? We watched the characters performing a theatre show and we learnt the Bing song and dance, that my girls continued to sing and dance to, all of the way home.
When the show finished (which seemed just at the right time as a few younger children had started getting a little teary around us), we headed out and purchased a balloon from the staff who were handing them out. £5 for a small balloon, £8 for a large balloon. We went for the £8 balloon. Sadly, with the wind and a Jemima who was scraping him around the walls on the way back to the car, the balloon didn’t survive. But I feel that was our treatment of the balloon and not the quality of it.
Bing, my girls loved your show.
Me and my husband still haven’t been converted. But I am yet to find an adult who does like Bing.
Watching Bing… It’s not an adult thing!
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Disclaimer: Production photographs with courtesy of Johan Persson. Tickets with thanks to Birmingham Repertory Theatre.