(This review originally appeared on North West End)
If you have little ones who love Cbeebies, you’ll know of Bing – the bunny who often gets things wrong (and let’s be honest, is a pretty accurate portrayal of toddlerhood), who lives with the tiny and endlessly patient Flop. (I was partially hoping that today’s show would explain a) what animal Flop is and b) what his relationship is with Bing. But spoiler alert: that did not happen). This show brings the joy of the cartoon favourite onto the stage under the guise of it being Bing’s birthday.
I have seen quite a few children’s favourites on the stage, and they don’t always hit the mark. Some of them seem rushed, created without care, or love for the source material and are nothing more than an overstimulating cash grab.
Thankfully, Bing is not one of those.
As soon as we walked into the theatre, my 3-year-old was enrapt. On the stage was a pretty perfect replica of the outside of Bing and Flop’s home, as seen on Cbeebies (multiple times a day), and even the music had a Bing vibe.
The characters are brought to life by the most incredible puppets played by:
Lola Busari – Amma
Nathan Guy – Pando
Emma Hilts – Sula and Coco
Vinnie Monachello – Bing
David Tudor – Flop
Although all of the actors/puppeteers were fantastic, I do have to shout out the amazing Lola Busari as Amma and David Tudor as Flop, whose voices were spot on for the animated characters.
The concept of the show is pretty simple: it’s Bing’s birthday and Flop is planning a surprise party. Along the way, the group have several small adventures, mirroring classic episodes, such as Bing and Flop making smoothies (in Brenda the Blender, blender extraordinaire!), and Pando and Bing having a clumbo in the park.
Bing, Sula and Pando also play with balloons. with a great bit of interaction where the balloon is thrown around the audience. After seeing the Bluey show last year where several of the most enormous balloons were thrown around the audience, I will say that the one balloon was a little underwhelming in comparison, and a lot of children seemed to struggle with it not going towards them, but it was a lot of fun.
Although for adults the storylines felt a bit repetitive to the show, the children loved seeing some of their favourite moments come to life, and having the familiarity kept their attention.
There were also some lovely moments of interaction, with dancing, singing and playing “Musical Statue Still”. The songs were absolute earworms for the grown-ups but I’m not sure how easy the children found it to sing along.
Amma announced the interval as jumping aboard the toilet train, which was a fun detail to break up the 70ish-minute show. It was also a great opportunity for the merch man to stand close by as I explained to my children (many, many times) that I was not going to spend £13 (each!) on a flashy light thingy.
The sets, the puppets, the script – were all so perfectly Bing. My children fully bought into the show and really enjoyed it.
As far as children’s shows go, it wasn’t my favourite (Bluey will always win that for me) but it was pretty great and if your child is a big Bing fan, it’s absolutely worth a watch.
The show continues to tour around the country until August.