Every year I take my 2 children, 8 and 10, to the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, to see a Christmas show. This year it's Hansel and Gretel. We all loved it, and as usual, left feeling festive and ready for Christmas; there's definately a Christmassy vibe running through this re-telling of the story.
If you haven't been to the Tobacco Factory, you might be surprised by how small it is. We were in the biggest room there - it's occupancy is apparently 290 people but it feels more like 100. The stage is round, with the seats arranged around it, only going about 6 rows back. The seats are also like cinema chairs, where you tip them down to sit on them, but in doubles... so you and whoever is sat next to you tip the same seat forward, if that makes sense!
Someone asked me if this intimate performance meant you felt like you were going to get picked on, but it's not a pantomime. The cast did come through the audience, leaving stones with kids to mark their trail through the forest, and then collecting them to find their way home again at the end, so there is some audience participation in that sense, but it's very inclusive and friendly and the kids loved it, shouting out if they had a stone to be collected. (My kids were gutted they didn't happen to get a stone!) There's certainly no one hauled up on to the stage and made to do something embarrassing.
The small size of the venue means you're very close to the action - and the actors. You can see every expression on their face so there's no room for error on their part! And whilst I feel such a small scale, close, production might not suit everyone, it really helped us feel engrossed and captivated by what was going on on the stage.
When I say "small scale", I only mean in terms of the size of the auditorium and audience - it really does feel like a "proper" theatre production. There's not huge sets and scenery changes, but it is very well produced. Someone asked me if it was puppets or people, so I wonder if puppets are shown in the trailer or somewhere, but on the whole it's people: 4 actors who play all of the parts. There is one very effective scene where you see the house made of sweets in the wood, and the actors playing Hansel and Gretel walk puppets of themselves up to the small house. Once they reach the door they go inside and - poof - suddenly they're (you're all!) inside the house and the actors are playing the characters again. So the puppets are used just to give a sense of scale as they approach the house, which I thought was very clever. There's also smoke coming from a chimney which really had me wondering how they did it!
The show has a suggested age rating of 5+ which I'd say was about right. The Tobacco Factory have another show on this year for younger children. My kids loved it, and whilst I've always classed Hansel and Gretel as a children's story, there were adults there without little ones. It's not scary - I'd say their 2022 The Snow Queen was scarier (but then I guess I was watching that with younger kids) - even the bit where they burn the witch is done in a smart way so that you're not left feeling uncomfortable about what could be hideous. Length wise it's not too long at all - I think about 2 hours with an interval so only a little over 45 minutes each half, so not too much for small people to sit through (unlike Wicked by the sounds of it! I'm contemplating that for the Christmas holidays).
It's running until 19th January 2025 so you've still got plenty of time to go and see it, with a special "relaxed performance" on the 5th of Jan for people with additional needs, along with a couple of audio described performances. You can read all the details and book tickets on the Tobacco Factory website.
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