Meet our new entertainment reviewer for The Spinoff Parents: Palmerston North-based Luke, who loves live theatre and Paw Patrol. Here’s his review of Peppa Pig Live in Palmerston North.
Luke’s dad Chris writes: Without a doubt, John Cleese has been one of the worst things to happen to the fair city of Palmerston North. Prior to his tantrum in the mid 2000s, the Jewel of the Manawatu had little trouble attracting top quality international acts: indeed in 1996, Tina Turner was given an authentic Palmy experience when her concert at Arena Manawatu was halted mid-show due to a bomb threat!
These days, however, even the Wiggles tend to give Palmerston North a wide berth more often than not (sure, they toured last year, but that was probably due to a mix up in plane tickets thanks to Jetstar’s hilarious ‘North Palmerston’ campaign). Occasionally, the Grey Power lobby will successfully secure a gig from Gerry and his Pacemaker, or the Hollies, and yes, Guy Williams accidentally visited, then tweeted abuse twice in 2016, but it tends to be a fairly barren events calendar otherwise.
So when Peppa Pig brought her travelling family act to town, there was great excitement – or at least mild anticipation, in our household anyway. I had so many questions. How was a television show that barely manages to build enough plot to last five minutes going to fill an hour? Would real pigs be involved? How would they adapt to a theatre described by John Cleese as ‘a funny shape’? And most importantly, would Brian Blessed be touring to reprise his role as Grampy Rabbit live on stage?
Sadly, I wouldn’t be able to answer these queries first hand, my place of work not accepting ‘I want to see a kids’ stage show about talking pigs’ as a good enough reason to give special emergency leave for a Tuesday afternoon. So I sent my family instead. My wife, whose opinion I value very much, filed a brief, simple review: “There wasn’t really anything resembling a plot, but the kids liked it.” So to find out more, I turned to my now four year old, previously heard from discussing the aforementioned 2016 Wiggles show.
Luke reviews Peppa Pig Live
Peppa Pig was in New Zealand. The babies were coming to see Peppa Pig. It was raining outside, but they were inside.
My favourite bit of Peppa Pig was all of the pigs. They didn’t do the Peppa Pig song, but they did the Rain Away song. Mummy Peppa Pig and Daddy Peppa Pig were there. Peppa and George were there too. There was also another lady who was not dressed up. I don’t know what her name was.
They made pancakes. They made the pancakes well, but the pancakes went on the roof because they flipped them too high. They shaked the roof to get the pancakes down.
They also dressed up as princesses. But George wasn’t there when they dressed up.
Why do you want to hear about the funniest bit of Peppa Pig? It was when daddy pig tripped over the toys. It’s funny when my daddy trips over things in the room. At the end they jumped in muddy puddles. It was still raining.
Remember when we did a Wiggles review? When was that?
Mummy liked the Peppa Pig show, but she didn’t want me to keep my plaster on. I would like to see a Paw Patrol show next. They do do Paw Patrol shows, I just got a ticket to see a Paw Patrol show. I don’t know when it is. We haven’t seen it before. Let’s go to a Paw Patrol show every day! Boom!
No stars (out of none)
It would have been better if I gave them some stars.
Four year old Luke lives with his two parents and his little sister. He bought his first property (a small fire station) at age three and a half, after saving pocket money, not buying coffee for three and a half years, and nagging his parents into paying the rest. He is a tough but fair entertainment reviewer, who knows what he likes. He likes Paw Patrol.
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