The Long Nose Puppets are back! Their eclectic mix of original songs, beautiful hand-made puppets and gentle stories for the very young does not disappoint.
A visually exciting delight for young children
Two brightly coloured birds with very long beaks, share an ideal friendship for innocent toddlers. Here Doris and Delilah, demonstrate the joy and possibilities inherent in A Day to Play to flex their rhyming muscles and, instead of building a den, again, in their call and response number, they plump for presenting a marvellous magic show.
In the style of the digital native, they text an invitation to ‘all’ before planning the show. This deadline focuses their minds, and assisted in each task by a sequence of wonderful puppets, they create a show.
Monty the Madagascan Moth is a virtuoso hider and seeker, and a perfect pal to cobble together Doris and Delilah’s suitably magnificent costumes: the birds try out all kinds of hats – a carnival pineapple, a top hat, which is then squished to become a cowboy hat, until they alight upon a magicians hat. Mr Fasmatadeer, the slow-moving snail (with wonderful extending eye-tipped antenna) understands the importance of adopting a dramatic stage name: so the birds are reinvented as Daring Deilah and Doris the Determined.
Each beautiful puppet character has been made by the company and accompanies the action with an encouraging song. Along comes Red, the green frog, named by his colour blind mother; Red shares his musical number with an amphibian ensemble. He encourages our feathered friends with his song If You’re Gonna Be All That, You Gotta Make A Splash.
Each successive character is increasingly elaborate, climaxing with the glow worm and her backing singer fireflies. My personal favourite was the giant Welsh spider, resplendent in eight high-heeled electric-blue boots and a jaunty bonnet. Her set design added pizazz to the woodland scene.
Once the preparations are complete, the birds suffer a moment of doubt. Is this related to the absence of time spent on actually learning magic? In any case, a pep talk, in the form of a song puts them back on track. And the magic show is marvellous!
It’s a visually exciting delight for young children and contains enough gentle humour to keep adults entertained for an hour too. The Long Nose Puppet team are relentlessly talented, bringing stories to life with their unique and charming puppets and their delightful songs with life affirming lyrics.
