34 | May 9, 2013 | www.cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News
What’s On Family
VISIT OUR FAMILY SECTION at cambridge-news.co.uk/whatson n Hue Boy is at Cambridge Junction on Sunday, May 12 at 10.30am, 12.30pm and 2.30pm. Suitable for 3-7-year-olds, tickets are £9 (£5 concession) from (01223) 511511 or www.junction.co.uk.
1. Meet The Gruffalo! WANT to find out whether the Big Bad Mouse really exists? Your little ones can discover the truth at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in The Gruffalo’s Child, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s sequel to The Gruffalo. Tall Stories Theatre Company tells the tale of the Gruffalo’s rather curious child, who, one wild and windy night, potters out alone…. Expect music, magic and lots of fun. Suitable for ages 3+, it’s on from Wednesday until Sunday at various times. Tickets cost £12.50 from (01223) 503333.
2. Go to a tree festival A TREE festival you ask? Well, you’ll be pleased to know there’s no tree hugging involved. This Saturday Wandlebury Country Park is hosting an outdoorsy day of crafts, dancing and dressing up all in honour of spring. Learn an age old skill, become a flowery May Queen and give Maypole dancing a go. Suitable for all the family (and you don’t have to dress up if you don’t want to), pack a picnic and go along from 11am until 4pm – it’s free. Call (01223) 243830 for more details.
3. Get creative RUN riot (well, maybe just wander round enthusiastically), at the Fitzwilliam Museum for a morning of magical artiness. The Cambridge museum is holding an It’s Magic! event on Tuesday for mini Picassos. Explore the museum’s collections (we love the Egyptian mummy room), and visit the museum’s art studio to create some of your very own masterpieces to take home. It starts at 10am and is £3 per child. Booking is essential, so call (01223) 332904.
4. Dress up EVER fancied being a Victorian? Or a sixties mod rocker? As part of a new Fab Family Fridays scheme, run by Museum of Cambridge (formerly the Folk Museum), now you can. Under 5s can don top hats and dress up as Victorian gentleman, put on an apron and become a laundry maid or update a current outfit (with a few twists of course). The session starts at 10.30am and is free with museum admission. Call (01223) 355159 for further information.
5. Make wartime toys STEP back in time to an age when kids played with puppets and peg toys, not iPads and video games. The brilliant Imperial War Museum Duxford is running a bundle of activities recreating toys from the Blitz. Learn to make badges, puppets Blitz pictures and propaganda posters – They need you! The sessions are suitable for all ages and can be found in the Battle of Britain exhibition. Drop in between 11.30am and 3.30pm on Sunday. Normal admission prices apply, call (01223) 835000.
Hue Boy
M
ay might have finally provided some much needed sunshine, but if you have the chance to be transported to the Caribbean, you can’t really say no, can you? That’s where Hue Boy comes in. Created by the tutti frutti theatre company, Hue Boy is a colourful, interactive children’s piece about a little boy who lives in a Caribbean village and has anxieties about being the smallest boy in the class. Based on the book of the same name, written by Rita Phillips Mitchell, Hue Boy might lack a bit of height, but he doesn’t lack any sense of adventure. He sets out on a grand tour of his community to ask for advice, meeting everyone from his mum and grandmother, to the neighbour, the doctor and the local wise man. Eventually he does start to feel better about himself and being a little on the small side, but you’ll have to see it to find out why... Wendy Harris, tutti frutti’s artistic director, says: “The main idea behind the story is: it’s fine to be who you are and what’s important really is that you feel
WALKING TALL: Hue Boy
good about yourself. “While [Hue Boy] is going along on that journey, he learns lots of important messages such as healthy eating, and exercise and walking tall and being proud of who you are. “It’s very much an episodic little journey where a young child has to problem solve by working with his local community.” Packed full of audience interaction, the children are asked to get involved and
help tell the story as it tumbles along. “At times during the story the children actually become Hue Boy,” Wendy explains. “Usually by the end of the show every child in the audience is desperate to get up and help!” Aside from lively splashes of Caribbean music, a huge part of the show’s charm is the staging. The audience sits on the floor beneath a giant, multi-coloured parasol. “There’s a lovely moment when it opens up and it’s all been
decorated inside, it’s very pretty and colourful, so the children are placed within that wold. It’s very simple and catches the colour and the flavours of the Caribbean,” says Wendy. It’s also very funny: “One of the delightful things about it is there are two actors but one of the actors plays all the people in the village. So you see this lovely actor being the mum and the comic grandma and the neighbour next door. The children really enjoy that, they really enjoy watching his transformations into these different people.” So why should people come along? “It’s got gorgeous messages in it in terms of things that children can take away from it: it’s ok to feel different about who you are, but feeling good about yourself is a good thing to do,” Wendy enthuses. “It’s also funny and entertaining, it’s a very joyous piece, a very positive piece, you come out of it feeling very positive and uplifted. And I think the fact that the children actually participate in it, and get involved in it, they sort of take ownership of the play and leave walking tall.”