Pinocchio: The Old Rep Theatre

Location: The Old Rep Theatre, Station Street, Birmingham

Dates: Now until 30th December 2018

Prices: Family Tickets starting from £55.50, Stalls from £17.80, Balcony from £14.80. Click here to purchase tickets.

The Old Rep Theatre never ceases to impress with their shows. Alice in Wonderland last year and The Wind in the Willows in 2016. Old time classics brought back to life – for adults and young ones combined.

Summed up in one word by the Smallhousebigtrips family, Pinocchio is “marvellous“.

Alec Fellows-Bennett is the director of this show. For those who haven’t met Alec, his love of theatre radiates from him when talking to him. He is a man full of positive energy and when watching Pinocchio on the stage, it was easy to see that he had transferred this energy and enthusiasm into the production of Pinocchio. Unlike many directors, Alecs love for the stage also sees him as the shows understudy (something I would actually like to come and see) ready to fill in the role of anyone who cannot make the performance.

For me, the stand out peformance in Saturdays Press Showing, was Holly Sayer who plays the role of Pinocchio. Her movement as a wooden puppet was superb, you almost believed that she was indeed a puppet. The growing nose when Pinocchio lied made me and the girls laugh lots, the added sneezes really tickled Matilda and Jemima. Hollys performance also made me go home and try to copy the wooden movements, especially the arms swinging around. I think I may have perfected it after about 8000 attempts. Ha!

My husband had two favourite characters, the first was Mangiafuoco the Puppet Master, played by David Alwyn (who also plays Little Man) . Although unlike the traditional story his character wasn’t large and scary in this version, but instead tall, handsome and very theatrical. Mila Sanders (Set and Costume Designer) had created Mangiafuoco’s costume very well, dressing him like a (very over the top) ringmaster. You can see below that Jemima was a huge fan of the costume.

And the second was the Blue Fairy played by Daisy Ann Fletcher. The Blue Fairy appears as three different characters; a Cricket, a Parrot and a Tuna Fish and sprinkles a little magic (quite literally with her hands) across the stage. You’ll notice other than the sea, sky and magic, no other use of blue is seen during the performance, to help the Blue Fairy stand out. Another clever touch by Set and Costume Designer Mila Sanders. Daisy had the audience practically eating from the palms of her hands, her awkward movement across the stage keeping the children chuckling away.

Matilda loved Geppetto and told us that he was her favourite character. What child wouldn’t like Geppetto, a real, live, toy maker? Geppetto is played by Ralph Birtwell (you may recognise him from East is East and Coronation Street among many other TV shows). Ralph played the role well and there’s a point in the show (I don’t want to spoil it, even if everyone does know the story of Pinocchio) where Matildas huge smile which had been on her face for the whole show, suddenly dropped, as she wanted to go and ‘save him’.

And when asking Jemima who her favourite character was (we used the word ‘person’ so she understood) she told us it was the rabbit. A little confused, me and my husband looked at one another, before realising that Fox’s long ears poking out of his hat, had led her to believe he was a rabbit. So yes, my daughter liked the ‘dodgy geezer’ out of the show, who was very well played by Martin Bassindale (BBCs/Netflix’s The Forgiving Earth).

The ensemble cast for Pinocchio is made up of Birmingham Ormiston Academy (BOA) students. Since 2014 The Old Rep has been managed by BOA which is an academy for 14-19 year olds specialising in creative, digital and performing arts.

The students did really well and it is plain to see that some of these will be going very far in their careers.

The whole show was fantastic and it was good to see that this version hadn’t lost its ability to share morals with children and adults alike;

• Don’t tell lies or your nose will grow
• Be a good person and your wishes can come true
• If you’re mean, bad things will happen to you, and the most important message of all…
• If you don’t go to school you’ll turn into a donkey.

Steve Allan Jones (Composer & Musical Director) created some amazing catchy music, including the donkey song which may have been my favourite. The children and adults in the audience were all eager to clap along and my two girls enjoyed having a little seat dance to the songs as a result of Steve Elias (choreographer) and of course, the magic provided by Alex Fellows-Bennett.

This is a fantastic family show to watch and Alec Fellows-Bennett is hoping that this play will be the start of many children’s relationships with live theatre.

On until 30th December 2018, you could have a family pre-Christmas trip to the theatre together or even purchase tickets as a Christmas present and head on over after Christmas before hitting the Birmingham Christmas Bullring sales.

This is a show that will remain a firm favourite in yours and your children’s minds for years to come.

Disclaimer: The Smallhousebigtrips family were invited along to the Press Showing, in return for an honest review. As usual, we have given our honest thoughts. We loved it.

Please see below for some more pictures of our time at the Press Showing – we had a great time indulging in cakes and doing crafts pre show and meeting the cast after the show had finished.

And look at these happy faces during the interval…