Awful Auntie Live On Stage

Me and eldest took a few of our friends to the Opera House Manchester last night to the Press Night Launch of David Walliam’s Awful Auntie Live On Stage. We are so lucky and couldn’t wait to see it! Joshua has recently started one of David Walliam’s books, reading it with us at bedtime, but we didn’t know the Awful Auntie story, but he was so excited!

The story of Awful Auntie takes place in a huge mansion and consists of a fabulous mixture of horror and humour! In the opening scenes, we quickly learn that Stella Saxby, a 12 year old girl hows to now be taken care of by her ‘awful auntie’ Alberta. I won’t ruin the plot for those who haven’t read it or seen it, but Stella soon realises something isn’t quite right and decides to play detective with a little help for the friendly ghost, Soot!

There was some incredibly clever aspects to this show that I loved. For example, the action on stage never stopped. As the actors moved around the mansion from room to room, so did the stage! Staircases and doors revolved, garage doors flew open, it was fast paced and definitely helped keep the tension of the thriller- keeping the audience on the edge of their seats! One of my son’s favourite parts of the entire show will have been when there was a car and a motorway riding around the stage!

Another fantastic and again brilliantly clever part of the show was the way they portrayed Wagner, the Owl. Depending on the scene, they had several different puppets to act with, my favorite being when Wagner, Auntie Alberta and Stella head outside.

There was parts that I thought my little boy may find scary. He’s never six but is quite sensitive. He did make a comment about the music, a lot of suspense music. I didn’t need to worry, as their was a perfect balance of comedy with the scary bits. My son went from holding my hand to almost crying in laughter within seconds.