101 Dalmatians The Musical

Puppetry designer and director Jimmy Grimes has done a fantastic job creating lookalike Dalmatians for this family friendly show of 101 Dalmatians.

So much so, you would be hard pressed to realise the stage dogs are on strings, well all, except cute puppy Linda, who makes a timely entrance at the end of the show.

Talented Linford Johnson and Emma Thornett take on the main canine roles of Pongo and Perdi and the show follows the original 1965 story by Dodie Smith and the follow up classic Disney film.

The audience at King’s Theatre in Glasgow was mainly young and enthusiastic and loved the story of the two Dalmatians living an idyllic lifestyle with human owners Tom (Samuel Thomas) and Danielle (Jessie Elland).

Everyone is delighted when they discover Perdi is pregnant. But their lives are thrown into disarray by evil Cruella De Vil (Faye Tozer) who uses her sons Casper (Charles Brunton) and Jasper (Danny Hendrix) to kidnap the dogs to make a fur coat from their skins.

There are some great songs in the show from Take Me Home to Bring Me Fur and the main cast have good voices and command powerful performances, with expert musical accompaniment led by director Leigh Stanford Thompson.

Head of wardrobe Amanda Ozdonmez brings colour to a wonderful set designed by Dylan Ward-Jones and the whole show has a happy pantomime feel about it.

The entire cast, made up of Victoria Compson-Bradford (swing) and ensemble members Ross Dorrington, Benjamin Durham, Benedict Hastings, Lottie Johnson, Rachel Lea-Gray, Tom Norman, Hugo Rolland, Lindo Shinda, Eugene Shire and Jasmine Triadi, clearly enjoy being on stage and it’s a real family fun night out.

101 Dalmatians The Musical runs until Saturday, 16^th November at King’s Theatre and then moves to The Playhouse in Edinburgh from 19^th to 23^rd November before heading south to The New Theatre in Oxford from 3^rd to 7^th December, and finishing off at The Theatre Royal in Brighton, between 17^th December 5^th January 2025.  For ticket information please visit: www.atgtickets.com.

Author Bio:

Rebecca Hay is an experienced travel writer and member of The British Guild of Travel Writers. Follow her adventures with her family on Twitter and Instagram @emojiadventurer and on Facebook via EmojiAdventurers2.

Photographs courtesy of Johann-Persson