The Gruffalo - Up Close and Personal

Today Ella and I ventured to the Street Theatre to watch The Gruffalo. We nearly didn't make it there as the clutch in the car got stuck on the way. Luckily Nana saved the day and managed to get us to the theatre on time leaving the car on the side of the road to sort out later.

Now I wasn't really sure how Ella was going to cope and had images of her being too scared in the dark and of the Gruffalo. The performance was very entertaining even for the adults in the audience and cleverly produced with only 3 actors. The kids were encouraged to participate too. Ella sat on my lap for the majority of the 50min performance and on 2 occasions wanted to go home however I managed to persuade her to stay.

Finally the Gruffalo made his first appearance - and wasn't too scary looking. That was until he was chased off the stage by the mouse and headed up the aisle towards us! Unfortunately as Ella was on my lap her seat (the one next to the aisle) was free and the Gruffalo was looking for somewhere to hide which happened to be - yes you guessed correctly - in Ella's free seat. Well poor Ella (and the little boy in the row in front of us) nearly had a cow. There were tears in her eyes as she was telling me that she didn't like the Gruffalo and almost squashing the person in the seat next to us trying to get as far away from this creature! Luckily he didn't hang around too long and returned back to the stage to finish the story.

So it was a positive experience and probably on the limit of what Ella could cope with in regards to the length and the scariness. As for the car the NRMA came out to confirm it was the clutch cable and organised a truck to tow it to the mechanics. A job for Monday....