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Horrible Histories Provides Family Fun at Opera House

From the brutal Blitz to the front line, Terry Deary’s Woeful Second World War and Frightful First World War, come to life with 3D special effects at The Opera House this November.

Woeful Second World War tells the story of two children, Alf and Sally, who get evacuated to darkest Wales, away from the damp shelters and nightly bombings of their home city – only to encounter rotten rations, scary schools and even scarier new parents. In the second half of the show Alf and Sally deal with their new life and the audience wear 3D specs to see the amazing Bogglevision effects, getting ready to duck as the German bombers make their way to Coventry.

Frightful First World War is the story of 13-year-old Angelica Taylor who, while struggling with her history homework, gets sucked into her computer and stuck in the Horrible Histories website until she has travelled through the five years of the First World War. She’s helped by Private Paul Turner, a 16-year-old solider whom she meets in every year of the war.  But if Angelica doesn’t complete a task, gets killed or fails to reach 1918 before the battery power runs out, she’ll be stuck inside her laptop forever.

Deary was recently described by the Daily Telegraph as ‘the country’s most influential historian’ and Cherie Blair has spoken proudly of her son, Leo, reading the Horrible Histories books.

The Birmingham Stage Company have triumphed with stage versions of four of Terry Deary’s hugely successful ‘Horrible Histories’ books: the Tudors, Victorians, Egyptians and Romans. Using just four actors and amazing 3D Bogglevision, they are now undertaking their most ambitious task of bringing the First and Second World Wars alive to young theatre audiences.

Horrible Histories runs from 3 to 7 November 2009 at the Opera House.

- by Glenn Meads

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