David Melling’s cuddle-deficient bear is not yet a kids property of the Peppa Pig or Octonauts variety (that’ll have to wait until CBeebies commissions a TV version) but this lively stage show is the first step on the road. Performed by the Blunderbus theatre company (who also have Duck in the Truck and The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark on the go), this three-hander turns the already lovable Douglas into a giant fluffy bundle of cuteness.
Though Melling has produced a bunch of Hugless Douglas books since 2010, the show goes back to the basics of the first one. Douglas wakes up from hibernation and – guess what? – wants a hug. In a thoroughly defanged reversal of the Goldilocks story, each hug he gets is never quite right, until one final hug hits the spot. But so as not to spoil the surprise, we won’t let on where it comes from.
Blunderbus do a very nice job, combining puppets, music and giant fluffy costumes. There’s also no attempt to make things actively scary, so you can take the little ’uns without any problem – though the show age range is 3-7, I snuck in my two-year-old along with the four-year old, and they both remained happy and entertained throughout. A copious dose of good-old-fashioned audience interaction, as Hugless Douglas ran up and down the aisles looking for his hug, worked a treat.
Cornerstone in Didcot, a venue I’d never been to before, turned out to be a perfect place for kids’ shows, with a good-sized cafe, a special craft room and a plentiful supply of booster seats – definitely worth the trip in itself.
- Hugless Douglas is now touring nationwide.
