The Seymour Centre’s Everest Theatre is currently home to the return season of ‘The Gruffalo’, London’s Tall Theatre Company’s acclaimed adaptation of Julia Donaldson’s best selling children’s picture book (illustrations by Axel Scheffler).

Donaldson’s book has certainly had a rich and long life since it was first published in 1999 by McMillan Children’s Books as a 32 page hardback. The premiere stage adaptation by the Tall Stories Theatre Troupe’s, comprising a 50 minute show, played at the Chester Gateway Theatre in 2001. and has since toured widely in the United Kingdom, New York, Poland and during 2009 the children’s musical toured Sydney and Canberra during which it took out the Sydney Theatre Award for best children’s production.

‘The Gruffalo’, with its quaint, appealing storyline, is great school holiday entertainment for young kids. The narrative is based on a traditional Chinese folk story of a fox that borrows the terror of a tiger.

In Donaldson’s storyline the fox is a mouse that ventures into the dangerous woods in search of some hazelnut snacks. The mouse comes across a range of predators, including a smirking fox, a retired Air Force General owl, and a maraca-shaking, party animal snake, eager to supplement their respective diets. The mouse borrows the terror of what he believes is his imaginary friend, the monster Gruffalo, to warn off his predators. They leave him alone but this is just a ‘turn in the road’ with the mouse going further into the woods where he encounters the real Gruffalo…

An enthusiastic cast of three, Crystal Hegedis, Simon van der Stap and Stephen Anderson, bring Donaldson’s story to life. Stephen Colyer’s production complements the quirky storyline with plenty of song and dance, tied in with audience interaction, and plenty of playfulness surrounding the emergence of the monstrous Gruffalo.

The current return season at Sydney’s Seymour Centre is part of Christine Duncan productions national tour of the show that began in Brisbane early in January this year and continues till early October where it is set for its final performances in Perth, Western Australia. The Everest theatre season concludes this Saturday July 10 and the show then moves on to Taree and Newcastle.