Review - Babe The Sheep Pig at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing

Last week, we were invited to the Connaught Theatre in Worthing to watch Babe - The Sheep Pig, the latest stop on a UK tour which continues until October 2017. The show follows the rise of Babe the piglet as he becomes a world famous sheep-pig, and is based on the beloved best selling book by Dick King-Smith.

Babe is a piglet won at a fair and brought back to the farm by Farmer Hogget. He is destined for the dinner table, until one night he saves the sheep on the farm from sheep rustlers. As a reward his life is spared and he becomes a part of the family. He is raised by Fly the sheep dog, who tells him that sheep are just stupid animals.  However after befriending a motherly ewe called Maa he learns that sheep aren't as stupid as he had thought, and he finds out that by being polite to the sheep and asking them nicely he can get them to do what he wants. When Farmer Hogget sees what he can do he trains him, and enters him into the Sheepdog Trials.

The tale is told on stage with a range of costumes, puppets, dancing and original live music. The set is simple, but used cleverly to represent all the different locations in the story, and the costumes are well designed so that the actors can portray a range of different characters. It was a little intense at times with flashing lights and dramatic sound effects, and there are some sad and scary parts in the story, but it didn't cause any problems with the children.

We all really enjoyed the show. The children found the sheep in particular hilarious, especially when they were moving around on the stage before the show started and responding to the 'baas' that were coming back at them from the audience! They were captivated by the action on stage as it unfolded, and were really drawn into the story.

We received press tickets to the show in exchange for a review.