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The Gruffalo Returns for West End Xmas at Apollo

Tall Stories’ popular children’s show The Gruffalo will return to the West End this Christmas for a fourth year in a row. Following its extended season at the Duchess last year, it reopens at the Apollo Theatre on 25 November 2009 for a run to 10 January 2010, with daytime performances at 11am, 1.30pm and 3.30pm (dates vary).

The Gruffalo follows Mouse into the deep dark wood on a hunt for hazelnuts. Armed with just a nut map and a vivid imagination, Mouse runs into wheeler-dealer Fox, retired Woodland Air Force officer Owl, and party animal Snake. Rather than becoming the main course of their next meal, Mouse scares them away with stories of an imaginary monster friend. But what happens when he comes face-to-face with the very creature he imagined?

Tall Stories’ stage show, premiered in 2006, is adapted from Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s multiple award-winning book of the same name. In the ten years since it was published in 1999, it has become the biggest-selling picture book ever in Britain, having sold more than four million copies worldwide and been translated into 38 languages. Its sequel The Gruffalo’s Child was named Children’s Book of the Year at the 2005 British Book of the Year Awards.

Casting for the new West End dates has not yet been announced. Tall Stories was founded in 1996 by directors Olivia Jacobs and Toby Mitchell, who helm the production, which is designed by Isla Shaw. The Gruffalo is presented in the West End by Kenny Wax Ltd and Nick Brooke Ltd in association with Tall Stories.

- by Terri Paddock

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