The Wardrobe Ensemble To Present BABETTE COLE'S PRINCESS SMARTYPANTS

Wayward Productions and The Wardrobe Ensemble will present the world stage première of Babette Cole's award-winning book Princess Smartypants.

The production opens at The Watermill Theatre, Newbury in April, before touring to The Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol, Arts Depot, Finchley and the Lyric Studio, Hammersmith.

Adapted for the stage by The Wardrobe Ensemble, the production is the first time Wayward Productions have produced a piece of family theatre.

Princess Smartypants does not want to get married. She wants to carry on making music with her menagerie of monstrous pets, but the King and Queen have other ideas… Find out how Princess Smartypants fights to preserve her independence in this hilarious fairy-tale-with-a-difference. Full of songs and madcap comedy, Princess Smartypants is a treat for all the family.

Perfect for anyone who is fed up with traditional fairy tales and wants to see what happens when girls are in charge of the castle.

Originally published in 1986, Princess Smartypants is a classic of feminist revisionism for children. It has now been translated into 32 languages and sold over a million copies worldwide.

Wayward is producing its first family show – adapting these charming yet subversive books for stage, in collaboration with The Wardrobe Ensemble.

Enter the world of Princess Smartypants and her friends, including her menagerie of Dragonocodiles, Pollycrocs and other monstrous pets. You'll even get to meet some of the hapless princes – those the princess hasn't turned into toads!

Babette Cole (1950 – 2017) was one of the finest illustrators of her generation but her skill with a paintbrush was more than matched by her knack for coming up with witty and original stories and finding surprising, innovative and, above all, funny ways of telling them. She was born in Jersey in the Channel Islands in 1949 and after leaving her convent school there, went to study at the Canterbury College of Art. Having achieved a first class degree, she began her career by working in television, assisting the legendary animator Oliver Postgate on programmes such as Bagpuss. She was soon illustrating greetings cards and story books as well and published her own first book, Basil Brush of the Yard in 1977. The quality and charm of her illustrations brought her awards for books such as Nungu and the Hippopotamus (1978) and The Wind in the Willows Pop-Up Book (1983) but her anarchic tale of the school mum who is also a witch, The Trouble With Mum (1983) brought real commercial success and began a series of books subverting the traditional characters and plots of children's literature, exemplified by perhaps her most famous creation, Princess Smartypants (1986). As well as turning fairytales upside down, Babette Cole found a way to tackle controversial or taboo subjects, delighting children by revelling in the gross and repellent in the The Hairy Book (1984), The Slimy Book (1985), The Smelly Book (1987) and The Silly Book (1989) and introducing difficult topics such as puberty, sex and childbirth in Hair in Funny Places (1999) and Mummy Laid an Egg! (1993).

About the Show 

For ages 5+

The Watermill Theatre, Newbury

4 - 6 April

www.watermill.org.uk / Box Office: 01635 46044

Wardrobe Theatre Bristol

8 - 10 April

www.thewardrobetheatre.com / Box Office: 0117 902 0344

Arts Depot Finchley

12 - 13 April

www.artsdepot.co.uk / Box office: 020 8369 5454

Lyric Studio Hammersmith

28 May - 1 June

www.lyric.co.uk / Box Office: 020 8741 6850