Room on the Broom is in the West End for Christmas – and shares a theatre with Thriller! We got a bit confused at first, but it also explains the early show – which, by the way was utterly delightful and really good fun.

You’re probably already familiar with the Julia Donaldson book, and if you’re like me you’ll be wondering how it transfers onto the stage.  It had the most original start of all the plays we’ve seen this year – all four main characters came out about ten minutes before it was due to start and played hide and seek around the chairs, running around, chatting to kids in the audience and making it all quite fun. I was charmed!!

They all eventually made it back onto the stage, their story continues a little longer (complete with comedy snoring – always guaranteed to make three year olds and upwards giggle) until one of them says “Hey, what’s that in the sky up there?” and the Room on the Broom story as we know it starts.

There’s just four actors on stage – all of them have main roles and swap when the puppets are concerned. The Witch and the Cat are the actors in costume, one thing I noticed was even when the story was on another actor they still retained their characters – the cat doing cat-like things. The dog, frog and bird were all puppets – all hand operated by the actors brilliantly. If one actor wasn’t looking after a puppet they became a narrator, reading out sections from the book that you’ll recognise – ohh and the ‘whoooosh!’ bit was pretty good too!

The dragon was brilliant, very welsh and funny. The witch quoted two lines of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which us oldies sniggered about – and best of all, H loved it – her favourite bit was the dragon.

There was a little bit of audience participation, and I could see H joining in – singing and shouting when prompted.

The production lasted 55 minutes, possibly slightly longer with the hide and seek bit at the start and it flew by. I’ve got the song about the spell STILL stuck in my head  (“Ziggety zaggety zoggety zoom, we’ve got a most magnificent broom”), I wish I’d bought the album with all the songs which was on sale at a very reasonable £8. The merch stand was really well priced too – we got a Room on the Broom witch on a stand, and a programme – costing £6 in total.

All in all, it was a brilliant morning, a really lovely set and really well done – full credit to the actors for being so brilliant and funny.

If you’re thinking about going to see Room on the Broom, don’t delay! It’s on in the West End through Christmas until the 13th January, with most performances at 11am, plus a couple of 1pm ones – check this link for more details. It’s suitable for age 3 and up – though our performance did have some younger kids in there.

Watch the trailer here –

Room on the Broom Live

Tall Stories

We received our tickets for ‘Room on the Broom’ for free, all opinions are our own!