Little Howard and the Magic Pencil of Life and Death
Big Howard Read has brought his animated friend Little Howard back to Melbourne. Hooray!!! This time it was a show aimed at children and Howard had every aspect of this show honed to delight both children and adults.
Walking in we noticed the chirpy music was by They Might Be Giants from one of their Children’s albums and as we made ourselves comfortable we became aware that the fun had already started. Interesting drawings were appearing on the screen on stage, which began interacting with the audience, drawing audience members, asking questions and explaining that we were waiting for the latecomers. All this was designed to maintain those short little attention spans and worked beautifully.
Howard was soon on stage introducing Little Howard in song. The first half of the show was full of clever interactive games, stories and songs including a stunning scary ukulele lullaby that Howard has released as a children’s book. There are hints at the title of the show, but he cleverly leaves that main story until about half way through, again keenly aware of short attention spans.
The Giant Pencil finally appeared and Little Howard turned into 3D!!! For this, 3D glasses were handed out. There were more songs and hijinx and the children were encouraged to lie which I found refreshingly subversive, as were the rather naughty adult jokes that Little Howard occasionally threw in such as… ‘It’s not the Length of your pencil – It’s what you do with it that counts’. These flew gently over the children’s heads while the adults hooted in surprise. Rather like a good panto I suppose. Howard constantly involved the audience and equally impressed with his wonderful computer animation skills, which he taught the children a little about along the way.
There was so much packed into this show, I can’t believe anyone could come out disappointed. I honestly can’t remember seeing a better show that you could take your kids to, or just go yourself. Really, go see it, it was wonderful and had a brilliant song about Monkeys.
Visit the comedy festival website for bookings and further details