IT’S A rhyme that every child knows, and now it has become a stage show.
It’s coming to South Hill Park next month, ready to delight all ages in a new family show.
There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly, was first written as a song in 1953 it was a chart-topping hit for singer and actor Burl Ives before being adapted into a bestselling book by Pam Adams a few years later.
This version, found in schools, nurseries and homes across the world is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Children’s author Steven Lee, who has written How The Koala Learnt To Hug, Don’t Dribble On The Dragon, I Spy With My Little Eye, has turned the book and song into a magical musical stage show.
In it, aliens from a distant planet have crash-landed on earth and need our help to get home. But there’s a problem. Their rocket runs on stories, not fuel, and only the greatest story in the universe will be enough to save them.
The tale is told using acting, animation and puppetry.
Songs include If You’re Happy and You know It, and Incy Wincy Spider as well as I Know An OId Lady…
“The book was a favourite of my children and reading it to them reminded me how much I had loved it when my grandmother had read it to me,” Steven says.
Steven is best known for his original stories so is it a surprise that he created what is essentially an adaptation of a known title?
“It probably is,” he says. “But for those who like my original work, rest assured that I’ve popped in some of my own suitably silly twists, in keeping with the charming nonsense of the rhyme.”
The show will be at South Hill Park on Saturday, March 23, from 2.30pm. Tickets cost £15.75.
For more details, or to book, call the box office on: 01344 484123, or log on to: www.southhillpark.org.uk/shp-events/there-was-an-old-lady-who-swallowed-a-fly
