Jake at the theatre

Dear Gran,

Jake is currently obsessed with the book "Room on the Broom". I'm not sure if you ever came across it, but it's a fun story involving witches and dragons and friendship, and Jake will have one of us read this story to him three or four times a week. He's recently decided that each of us is now a character, so Kelsey's the witch, I'm the dragon, he's the cat, Sophie is the frog and Hobbes is the dog, of course. I had heard of a walking trail where the characters and storyline had been set up around a park, and started to look for it online, and by accident discoverd that there was a Room on the Broom stage show that had rave reviews from the West End and was coming north to Chesterfield. The internet being what it is, I had tickets booked in under 5 minutes and we went to the 10.30 matinee this morning.

You would have had a whale of time. It was short, only an hour, but perfectly pitched for kids with all the characters as they appear in the book as puppets, lots of songs and some funny dialogue to keep us adults amused. Jake sat mesmerised through the whole thing, cuddling Hobbes on my lap so he could see over the tall person in front. He had this wonderful look of concentration and a permanent grin as he recognised bits of the story coming to life, and couldn't take his eyes off the stage. It was a brilliant introduction to theatre for him, and I sat enthralled too, wishing that you had been able to take him and see the look of sheer joy on his face.

I also started him on the tradition of a small pot of ice cream to go with, though the train timings meant that we stuffed ourselves on the ride home with delight. Jake babbled about various bits all the way back, telling me how Hobbes had shouted at the dragon to go away and how the dog was very silly. It was interesting trying to describe what would happen in the theatre to him on the way there, but now he's been once, I'm on the look out for his next performance. It may be a while till we get to Alan Acykbourn and G&S shows, but we've started off in the right place.

Ben