Disney’s Winnie the Pooh: The New Musical Stage Adaptation

Brisbane Powerhouse saw the premiere of a new stage version of the classic tales by AA Milne, as elevated to iconic children’s favourite status by Walt Disney. This delightful adaptation featuring puppetry, colour and music is a good entry-level musical for very young kids to get them into the theatre. All their favourite characters are here – and most received audible ‘ooohs and aaaahs’ from the children in the audience as they made their entrances. There’s Winnie the Pooh, the loveable bear at the heart of the tales, his best friend, Piglet, and their friends from the Hundred Acre Woods, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit, Tigger, Kanga and Roo. Taking a small smattering of Pooh’s adventures, this production condenses them into a short show that plays with puppetry, voices, humour and simple stage effects that the whole family can enjoy.

There is some terrific work by the human cast of upcoming Aussie and Kiwi actors who perform live while manipulating their almost-life-size character puppets, Bunraku style, where the puppeteer is seen on stage. Alex Joy is wonderful as Pooh Bear, with a rich Sterling Holloway style vocal range for everyone’s favourite bear. Jake Waterworth was a powerfully positive stage presence as the energetic Tigger. New Zealander Rebekah Head was delightful as Piglet and Roo, and Andrew McDougall was endearing as Eeyore, Rabbit and Owl. There was also Jess Ridler as Christopher Robin and Jemma Armstrong as Kanga, with Jacqui Dwyer and Matthew Whitty as a range of butterflies, bees and other woodland creatures. It’s hard work being a puppeteer and the cast maintained high energy throughout the show.

Deceptively simple, the show also features musical direction and sound design by Nate Edmondson, lighting by Gints Karklins, audio by Ash Armitt, wardrobe by Freya Allen, mechanics by Nicholas Ralph and puppet wrangling by Jackson Eather. The Australian production is brought to life and co-produced by Melbourne-based theatrical producers TEG Life Like Touring, and the show’s original creators and puppet builders, Rockefeller Productions. An award-winning group based in New York, Rockefeller Productions is also responsible for creating Sesame Street The Musical, Paddington Gets In a Jam, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, and The Golden Girls Show! A Puppet Parody. The group is dedicated to high-quality family entertainment, and is led by American-Australian producer, Jonathan Rockefeller, who specialises in partnering with animation giants such as Disney, Pixar, Sesame Street and Peanuts to create life-size puppet characters. The focus on puppetry really suits the cast of the Hundred Acre Wood because children will naturally extend their play by voicing their stuffed toy characters and bringing the story to life again at home.

Honouring author AA Milne, this production takes on his original tone of simple stories written with warmth and comedy to appeal to very young readers. It also features some original songs written by the Sherman brothers for the original Disney productions. For the visual designs and puppets, Rockefeller Productions have chosen a happy medium between the day glo colours of the Disney animation and the pale lines of EH Shepard’s illustrations to create a pastel stage palette. This was a little bit too calm for some young viewers whose attention span really begins to wane after half an hour. But, that’s just fine, as Rockefeller told NPR’s Elizabeth Blair: “We don't have a shushing policy because they're viscerally responding to what's in front of them, and to see them excited is important.” Well, the packed audience of all ages – some wearing their Disney costumes – certainly enjoyed the show’s themes of friendship and kindness and fun. And because of the ‘no shushing’ philosophy, some pieces – especially Tigger’s song  –  were crying out for a bit of audience participation and, for me, the show could have used more songs, but I am hardly the target demographic!

Following the premiere in Brisbane, Winnie and his woodland pals take to the road in an Aussie tour starting with the Opera House in Sydney, then to Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria and regional New South Wales.

Find out more: winniethepoohshow.com/australia/tourroute.php

Beth Keehn