A VERY special children’s show is coming to The Wharf in Tavistock this weekend, when Lost the Plot Theatrical stage The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

The two performances at the venue on Saturday, February 26 will be a homecoming for brothers Richard and Jonathan Brindley and their friend Edward Johnson, who set up the company in 2018.

The former Tavistock College students are no strangers to The Wharf’s stage, having appeared in productions with Tavonians, Tavistock Musical Theatre Company, TC2 and Miss Trudi’s School of Dance before moving to London to start their professional careers in theatre.

Jonathan said: ‘We are so excited to bring The Three Billy Goats Gruff to a local venue where we first started out.

‘The pandemic has impacted us hugely with three of our productions cancelled in the past two years, so we are looking forward to welcoming family audiences back to this fun-filled show as we relaunch this February!’

The Three Billy Goats Gruff is a new take on the traditional tale for children of today described as ‘the perfect half-term treats for little ones and the big kids who bring them’. It comes to The Wharf on Saturday, February 26 at 11.30am and 1.30pm.

The three goats, Big Billy Goat Gruff (Elizabeth Chadwick), Middle Billy Goat Gruff (Emily Juler) and Baby Billy Goat Gruff (Emma Nelder), take it in turns to play the troll, ‘so it is less scary for the younger ones watching’.

‘They narrate the story and then they dive into the story and play their respective characters and they each play the troll as well,’ said Ricahrd. ‘It is quite clever, although we never expected it would take off as it has’

This is the show’s fourth run, so it has already been given the thumbs up by children. Richard, who wrote the show, said: ‘You can write it for a certain audience but you don’t know how it will be received until you perform it.

‘They were thrilled, which was really nice, because they don’t have the filter that adults have got. If they don’t like it, they will let you know, so in a way they are a much harder audience to write for.’

He added that their show was pitched at three to seven year olds, ‘although we have had two year olds come along and enjoy it’. Their tour also includes a return to the Palace Theatre in Paignton, where the show premiered back in 2018.

Richard added: ‘The Palace Theatre in Paignton was going to close, the council wanted to close it. A friend of mine took it on and said ‘can you bring us a show? I spoke to my brother who is a producer and Ed who is a director and we decided to put on a children’s show.

‘A lot of children’s shows are created on the back of successful storybooks like Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo for instance, but we wanted to create a fresh adaptaton of a children’s classic.We did a bit of research and found The Billy Goats Gruff is something that is still taught in primary schools and we thought this something we can do to bring it to an audience today.’

See www.tavistockwharf.com for tickets.