In celebration of thirty years of Aardman’s iconic duo Wallace and Gromit, Carrot Productions proudly presents a touring production featuring a cracking live orchestra. The orchestra, all dressed as a character from the popular short animation movies, lead by Presenter Matthew Sharp it starts with him getting the audience in the mood clapping along to the sound of the W&G theme tune being played by the band, fooling the audience into believing that he is the conductor - that is until the real conductor steps up to take his place.
Whilst act one predominantly is filled with snippets of the highlights of the Wallace and Gromit short movies whilst backed by the live band playing a variety of songs including a stunning rendition of Queens “Bohemian Rhapsody” (unsure what exactly this has to do with Wallace and Gromit nor how this is a song the hundreds of young children in the audience would be familiar with), there’s some new animation from the animated duo. Wallace is planning to make his live debut with his musical masterpiece “My Concerto in Ee Lad”. As usual with the often unlucky duo, several disasters strike from struggling to transport the grand piano, until Wallace using his investor skills turns it into a Petrol Powered Piano - will this work and get the show on the road on time? Meanwhile sidekick Gromit is working on perfecting his “worthless” violin (which turns out to be quite the collectors piece). There’s even more drama when Wallace’s inventions cause a blackout in the theatre as he’s shown working backstage.
Act two consists of a screening of 'The Wrong Trousers', with live accompanying music performed by the band. At two and half hours long including the interval, the running time is just about tolerable. Dot get me wrong, the live band are spectacular and Matthew Sharp brings warmth and humour to the performance ensuring the entire audience gets into the spirit with clapping along etc, but for young children, which this tour is predominantly aimed at, unless coming from a very musical background, there isn’t enough interaction or engagement from the band to hold their interest. This was clearly noticeable before the end of act one and more so during act two with children getting restless and noise levels increasing, plus several loudly crying children, from the blackout scene in act one to frustrated restless children during “The Wrong Trousers”. Whilst for myself having grown up watching the movies as a teenager, the event was nostalgic and refreshing to watch, brought to life by the wonderfully talented live orchestra. However for a young child (two showtimes for Manchester - 1pm and 4pm, the first one being the one I attended) - therefore clearly targeted at families, I feel that if I’d have taken any of my three youngest nieces along (aged 6, 4 and 10 months) they’d have grown restless before the interval.
I can’t help but feel that part of the reason behind this tour was to promote the next animation by Aardman staring Wallace and Gromit, along with it being an excuse to sell tonnes of expensive merchandise. The production left me feeling somewhat bittersweet - I enjoyed rewatching the movie especially on a large screen with a live band, but couldn’t quite grasp why this tour is aimed at young children when there’s clearly not enough interaction in it to hold their interest as evident from the response from today’s audience. I would definitely recommend it to anyone old enough to have seen all the animated movies the first time around, it has been so long since I last watched any of them it felt all shiny and new again, however for children under the age of twelve - unless they themselves play an instrument to a high level and have a passion for this sort of live music, I would book a babysitter and leave them at home as the chances are they will become easily bored.
Reviewer - Lottie Davis-Browne
on - 26/5/19
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