Barney Live! The Let's Go Tour (Blackpool)

The measure of a good kids show should always be the number of mini theatregoers clambering to get down to the front of the stage.

Box ticked then at Blackpool. Rows of the little munchkins, stomping their feet on cue within touching distance of their favourite dinosaur as they try to get an Imagination Machine to mend some broken toys.

Along the way they’ve danced like a robot, played an air guitar and pulled the funniest faces of all. It’s exhausting to watch them, trust me.

As you’d expect, this is a full-on musical affair with constant audience participation, though mercifully this is en masse and from afar with mums and dads left well alone.

There’s a simple storyline, a trip through a toy factory. All the favourite characters are prominent and the songs are all familiar. It may be more than a decade since this colourful creature last entertained in my house, but I still remember the words to "If All The Rain Drops."

Another brownie point – the writers have resisted the urge to mess with a tried and trusted formula just because there’s a transfer from screen to stage. This is classic Barney, from the opening bars of "the Clapping Song" right through to the trademark goodbye kiss at the refrain of "I Love You."

Simple, slick and just the right length at 90 minutes with a short interval – in the words of our hero himself, Barney Live- Let's Go is nothing short of a Super Dee Duper show.

Barney Live! continues to tour the UK. For further dates and venues, click here.