Pre-schoolers everywhere love the cartoon mouse Angelina Ballerina, star of her own series of books and a TV show.

Miranda Larson, writer and director of Angelina Ballerina The Mousical, tells us about the stage show which is sure to delight her fans.

Q How would you describe The Mousical?

It’s a musical theatre production packed full of singing and dancing with an engaging and fun storyline. The show transports audiences to Chipping Cheddar, as Angelina and friends discover that Camembert Academy has won the opportunity to appear in their favourite television programme, Dancing With Mice.

It feels like a dream come true, but when the girls and boys have very different ideas for the show and just can’t seem to agree on anything, it’s up to Angelina as Dance Captain to ensure that the show goes ahead.

Q What’s the message from the show?

Angelina always works hard to reach her goals and learns from her mistakes.

As the young audiences share in Angelina’s experiences, they’re inspired to go after their big dreams too.

Q Who is the target audience?

Though it’s aimed at pre-school children and its core age group is three to five, there are many little two-year olds who’ve started ballet early who love Angelina and you also actually find that girls like it up to the age of seven – and even the odd older one who might not admit their age comes along.

Q As writer and director, how do you develop and create a new show and who is involved in that process?

Katharine Holabird who writes the books, the TV series producers, Hit Entertainment, and theatre producers BOS Productions and Nick Brooke have all contributed towards making this show.

It’s quite a long creative process, starting with the story outline, then scene-by-scene development, then the script and The TV shows use computer-generated imagery.

Q Who performs the live show on stage?

Our stage production is performed by adult performers. The cast are all in their 20s and are super fit and gorgeous.

Most of them are quite new to the industry. For Joanna Gregory, who’s playing Angelina, this is her first job in Musical Theatre since leaving drama school at the Guildford School of Acting. She’s an excellent ballerina and has performed with the English National Ballet and National Youth Ballet of Great Britain.

Q Tell us about the musical content in The Mousical

There are 10 original songs; I wrote the lyrics and Barrie Bignold wrote the music. You can listen to some sound bites on our website at angelinaballerinalive.com.

Each song serves a different purpose and helps to drive the story. We start with a cheerleader number, ‘Hey There, Camembert’ which has become a popular favourite with audiences and is super catchy.

There are upbeat songs, emotional songs and fun songs in the show.

As it’s a musical (sorry, A Mousical) we also have a full script to tell the story.

 

  •  Angelina Ballerina The Mousical can be seen at the Wyvern Theatre on August 26. Tickets cost £13.50 for adults and £11.50 for children. Family tickets can be bought for £11.50 each but the party must include one adult.