After the cultural privation of 2020, what a joy it is to be back at the theatre. I had taken my daughters to see shows regularly prior to the pandemic, and had hugely missed the opportunity to do so whilst stages were shut. I was delighted to discover that David Wood’s Olivier award-nominated adaptation of Judith Kerr’s classic The Tiger Who Came To Tea - the tale of a tiger inviting himself round to tea with a little girl and her mother- has returned for the summer to the West End.
As I wander down Haymarket towards the theatre with my daughters, Ophelia (four), and Arabella (two), in tow, I chuckle inwardly as we pass the nightclub Tiger Tiger, which, by poetic coincidence, is just a few doors down from Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Theatre Royal Haymarket, all gilt and Cadbury-purple, is a bit of a chocolate-box theatre, and while we’re waiting for the lights to dim, we’re busy admiring the interior as well as Susie Caulcutt’s stage design. Ophelia is delighted to see Sophie’s kitchen beautifully re-created on the stage – replete with its flowery crockery and formica surfaces. The verisimilitude is borne out in the costumes, too; I particularly appreciate the geometric tights Before we know it, Sophie (Jocelyn Zackon), her Mummy (Lizzie Dewar), and her Daddy (David Scotland) arrive in the stalls and are greeting the audience warmly as they climb onto the stage. Their entrance is a hit with the kids, many of whom are waving felt tigers on sticks around enthusiastically in the air.
The theatre version of The Tiger Who Came to Tea is padded out to just under one hour, and there is consequently some deviation from the original plot. The show starts with a family breakfast scene, in which a bleary-eyed, buffoonish daddy blunders around the kitchen confounding his shoes for toast and a tea cosy for his hat. The audience lap up the pratfalls, which persist after he’s left for work as the doorbell rings during both elevenses and lunchtime – with Sophie and her mother encountering an equally inept milkman and the postman.
All of this preamble serves to generate suspense for the tiger’s eventual show-stopping entrance. He arrives – pantomime style (accompanied by a cacophony of “he’s behind you”) at four o’clock. Wood’s show extracts some deft humour from the tiger’s arrival; for instance, when she realises their unexpected guest is hungry, Sophie’s mummy worriedly pulls her daughter away from him. Whereas in the book, the tiger is positively loquacious, in the theatre adaptation he doesn’t speak. His silence, however, is more than made up for by a great deal of elaborate bodily gesticulation. There are some enchanting sleight-of-hand magic tricks by which plates loaded with goodies are niftily emptied by the tiger, which left the children, and I suspect most of the grownups in the audience – myself included – scratching their heads. There are also plenty of engaging moments during the performance, such as the impromptu ‘Tigerobics’ class (swing your tail, shake your paws, stretch your claws etc.) and the rousing ‘Yummy-Scrummy Sausages, Chips and Ice Cream’ song, which go down a treat as the kids mimic the moves and sing along.
The show is perfectly pitched at its juvenile audience, and my young critics declared it their favourite show. The production has done an excellent job in channelling the intergenerational affection in which the story is held, and if you have young children, I guarantee it will be a big hit.
Until September 5
For further information and to buy tickets, please visit https://trh.co.uk/whatson/the-tiger-who-came-to-tea/ or call 020 7930 8800
