The Snail and the Whale Preview - Arts Centre Melbourne
Our guest contributor Kate and her little ones recently enjoyed a preview of the upcoming theatre production by Tall Stories (creators of The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom stage shows) of 'The Snail and the Whale' based on the Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler book.
If you haven't heard of this beautiful story, it is a story about a tiny snail who longs to see the world, so she hitches a lift on the tail of a humpback whale and together they go on an amazing adventure. The performance will be running these winter school holidays from Wednesday 29th of June to Sunday 10th of July where little ones will be treated to a beautiful performance.
With its brilliant use of rhyming words, divine illustrations and a story line that is sure to bring a tear to your eye, The Snail and the Whale has been a favourite in our family ever since the poppets were born. Needless to say that we were overjoyed to hear that Tall Stories were returning to Melbourne with their next exciting collaboration with Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.
The five of us arrived at Arts Centre Melbourne this morning (the token fifth member of our family being a Schleich blue whale figurine!) and were greeted by a tropical beach setting with an activity table, balloon pool and a BIG whale billboard. Of course the lure of a clam pool full of blue balloons was too hard for Mister Arlo to resist so he headed off in that direction while Miss Macy chose to get her craft on.
The craft table was filled with snail shaped colouring sheets as well as buckets of brightly coloured pencils, glitter glue (judging by the amount on their clothes as we walked out the door, this was a highlight), children's scissors and printed sticky tape. Once the little snail was decorated to an inch of its life, it was then pinned onto the billboard to begin its journey on the tail of the great big gray-blue humpback whale.
Next up a special story time by our host for the morning, who really looked the part dressed in a Rip Curl wet suit with coordinating sea explorer accessories! The story mesmerising the group of toddlers who all sat quietly and attentively during the entire reading, I was well impressed.
Sensing the little ones were ready to get up and move about after watching a short video about the show, our sea explorer lead her flock through a variety of super cute games and imaginary play - which even had the adults up on their feet too.
After swimming, jumping and dancing like an octopus, Arlo and Macy were then spoilt with a scrumptious lunchbox and custom-madegingerbread cookies (courtesy of Petite Cookies), which may have been tested for quality control by the parents too!
After a wonderful morning, we left with fondant icing moustaches, happy hearts plus a rainbow of glitter glue but most importantly we left even more excited to see Tall Stories’ adaption of The Snail and the Whale stage-show when it opens later this month at Arts Centre Melbourne.
