Shaun's Big Show

I'm not really sure what I was expecting from a show with a taregt audience so young, and for the first half I sat there a little non-plussed. Looking around me the children were all wide-eyed, staring fixedly at the spectacle and seemingly loving every minute of it. We spoke to the man next to us, whose son sat on his lap, clutching his Shaun doll, eyes on stalks, stunned into silence by seeing Shaun live ... the boy was two years old, it was his first theatre trip and it looked to us like he was hooked for life.  By strange co-incidence, the head he was looking over the top of was that of the adaptor and director David Wood ...

During the interval I reset my critical faculties and prepared for the second half - this show runs only 90 minutes even with an interval but I can well see why - on the one hand the attention span and bed times of the audience dictate a short-ish show and on the other hand, continuous manic dancing dressed in a pg or sheep costume must really take it out of you (apparently the wardrobe mistress keeps them smelling sweet by spraying them with neat vodka!).

As the lights went down again I realised that I was now in the right space, looking with the right eyes at this wordless show filled with musical jokes, dances in every style conceivable and huge energy. For the first time in years I had to take out a notebook and scribble in the dark in case I forgot one of the great moments in front of me - despite the fact that the references were way outside the children's knowledge we were treated to delighted clapping and laughter as we saw, amongst many other things

• Three pigs in leather doing YMCA
• A complete silent movie homage
• STOMP by pigs and sheep
• A trully fabulous Dirty Dancing sequence
• An Hitchcock inspired break-in
• Swan Lake as you may never see it again
• Riverdance

Well, it made me laugh out loud several times ... so good on them - it made up for seeing some of the dancers 'avin a fag outside the stage door on the way in!

A great night out. On a more serious note ... there isn't one! Nothing inb this show need be taken seriously, no message, no sub-plot, just plain fun. And it the audience grow up loveing theatre because it can put a spell on them all the better!