The Smeds And The Smoos At The Mast Theatre, Southampton Review

Reviewed by Lisa

“By a lobular lake on a far off planet, there lived a young Smed, and her name was Janet. Not far away, on a humplety hill, there lived a young Smoo by the name of Bill.”

‘Tall stories’ have transformed Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler’s story ‘The Smeds and The Smoos’ in to an amazing theatre production for children. It tells of a story of the Smeds and the Smoos not being allowed to play together, but Janet and Bill falling in love and running off to get married after they are told they are not allowed to. The grandparents travel in their rocket trying to find them and meet lots of different creatures along the way and learn how to be friends again. They finally return home defeated at not finding Janet and Bill, only to find they had returned and had a baby – who is purple! They all learnt to live together in harmony once more, rather like a modern day children’s take on Romeo and Juliet. Tall Stories have produced over 30 different shows in their 24 years of existence, but I have never had the pleasure of attending one in the past.

My husband, myself and 2 eldest children (age 5 and 6) attended this show at the Mast Theatre in Southampton. We parked at Grosvenor Square car park which was a 5 minute walk away, and cost £3.50 for 3 hours parking. The train station is also only a 10 minute walk away. The theatre is quite small, but in a great position with plenty of places to eat or get a drink before the show, including a small café inside. On entering the theatre we received a very warm welcome by a member of staff who engaged the children in conversation and informed us the theatre and toilets were straight up the stairs. There were lifts for those that needed them and also accessible seating once in the theatre. The whole venue had a lovely feeling to it, it was clean and the staff were very friendly. There were free souvenir programmes for the children that had a few activities inside, which kept them occupied before the show started. We were emailed our tickets promptly in advance, and these were simply scanned from my phone when we arrived at the theatre door. We found our seats and had a great view of the stage as it has tiered seating, and the seats were fairly comfortable. The only thing we found was when the children on our row got excited, with the seats being attached we were all being bounced around!

The show began and our children were entranced from the start. Considering there are only 4 actors in the whole show, they took on different parts at different times and it was so clever how they performed it. The set was also used to aid all the costume changes, for example, what looked like shrubs turned out to be the arms of aliens they met on one of the planets they visited! The costumes were excellent and engaging and the actors did an amazing job – with the director Toby Mitchell stepping in to play Grandfather Smed due to illness in the company. Throughout the story being told there was rhyming, songs, dancing, and audience interaction, providing a great atmosphere in the audience! The actors got the children dancing, clapping and singing along, with some parts almost being like a pantomime – although we were quite glad not to be sat in the front seats when the water pistols came out! The songs were a lot of fun – we are still singing them afterwards – and it was a great introduction to theatre for young minds. The show says it is aimed at age 3+, and I would agree with this and say it’s probably aimed at 3-7 year olds. It lasted for 55 minutes with no interval, we felt the tickets were reasonably priced, and we all had a lovely time. We will definitely be looking up Tall Stories productions again in the future!

Rating: 5/5

Ticket prices – £12.50 per ticket

Tickets can be booked by visiting The Smeds and The Smoos (mayflowerstudios.org.uk)

Address: MAST Mayflower Studios, 142 – 144 Above Bar Street, Southampton, Hampshire. SO14 7DU