One minute you’re in a shop buying a sledge. The next you’re choosing seats for Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom Live. I don’t know how that happened either. Spur of the moment is a wonderful thing.
POD loves her “bellyolly” book and DVD, but a live show? Really? The potential for disaster was monumental. She’d not been to a live show before. It could go one of two ways. Either she’d sit still and enjoy it or she’d wriggle like an electric eel in a bid for freedom. Visions of the time we unwittingly gave POD sugar on a flight back from Turkey came flooding back.
We needn’t have worried. POD was given chicken pox from a nursery chum. A superb gift. Thank you.
We were resigned to the fact we’d have to relinquish our tickets but with a no refund policy, we decided to suck it and see. Thankfully, POD’s spots reached their scabby phase the day of the show. We were super excited. POD was totally oblivious to where we were going but grateful for a trip out having been cooped up in the house all week.
Even the venue was exciting to POD. We could have just wandered round looking at the promotional merchandise and she would have been happy. A look of total excitement and utter astonishment gripped her little face when we arrived in the theatre. Having secured our own area, we settled into our seats. We needn’t have worried about POD. She instantly recognised the music and the familiar sound of “Somewhere, hidden amongst the thorny brambles is a little kingdom where everyone is very very small…”.
Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom was a enchanting production. From the makers of Peppa Pig, it tells the story of a young Fairy Princess who’s learning how to fly and hasn’t quite got to grips with her magic. Her best friend, Ben Elf, doesn’t have wings or do magic but does run very fast. He also flies on the back of a woofing ladybird called Gaston. They all live in the Little Kingdom, a tiny land where flowers and grass rise high above them and every single day is an adventure.
The stage show sees Ben and Holly have fun playing games and helping Gaston clean up his messy cave. The gang also goes on a trip to The Big World with the tooth-fairy Nanny Plum and plan a surprise birthday for King Elf.
What made Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom Live an incredible experience was POD. Seeing your two-year-old look completely mesmerized and her face light up with such joy was just fabulous. That and the POD Father (not a fan of the pantomime type joining in) singing and doing all the actions to the songs with her. At the end of the performance we even enjoyed some aisle dancing because we could.
Despite saying goodbye to all the characters a meltdown of some kind was inevitable when the show ended. Thankfully it was short lived and we made it out relatively unscathed.
Then we were off. Chasing pigeons down Guildford high street.
Tickets to Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom Live are available on Ticketmaster at various locations across the UK. You can also sign up to the Ben and Holly mailing list here.
