Cadogan Hall has been on my bucket list of London venues since I first passed its stunning façade years ago in Sloane Square during a Chelsea stroll – the unique clock tower and especially the building’s backside are true gems within an area famous for its expensive real estates. I am therefore surprised on arrival that Cadogan Hall is only celebrating its 20th birthday this year; quick research reveals that though build in 1907 as a Scientist church (in the Byzantine Revival style according to Wikipedia), in 2004 the building was reopened as a concert hall and resident home of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
My two little reviewer assistants love the colourful windows and chrome door handles, peep in all nooks and crannies and definitely have a good look at the merch table – we are here for Zog And The Flying Doctors, a one-hour stage adaption of the sequel of a kids book by author and illustrator team extraordinaire Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. In May the kids went to their first ever theatre performance of Peppa Pig’s Fun Day Out at Fairfield Halls, and I pledge once again to them that it wont be scary (“if there is a thunderstorm like in the book, it will be a pretend thunderstorm in the theatre”) and absolutely, there will be a happy ending. Promise. They know the story much better than me, and of course I buy the book at the merch stand before the performance – luckily then, as there wont be an interval. I would have also liked to upgrade my kids’ book library further but surprisingly no other books by the same author are for sale here. Tiddler will have to wait.
On stage the moving tree props are an instant hit with the girls, then the cast of five summarises the first Zog book in wordy song, followed by a king’s speech. There is a lot of not too quiet whispering around my seat as it needs establishing that this is not the king, not a real king anyway, not a kind person but an actor (who again might be kind in real life) and then what is happening on stage is discovered and recognised bit by bit: Princess Pearl’s red dress, her green hair band, squirrels, crows, a tower with a jail window and further in the story, the snails on a mermaid’s rock clearly borrowed from The Snail And The Whale, another successful Donaldson / Scheffler collaboration. A dance-loving unicorn with a unique health problem is an audience favourite and its disco ball enchants the fellow dancers next to me and the high walls and ceilings of Cadogan Hall alike.
One of the beautiful messages of the story is that princesses do not have to sit in towers in their frilly dresses doing nothing but that they can be doctors, can befriend dragons, help others, and that kings are able to change their mind. This is well-known in our group of three but just in case, the girls follow the story with the just purchased book page for page, and if they had a pen, they would tick off everything they see on stage – and what is missing (tiny spoiler with apologies to illustration buffs: no cats on stage). After the happy ending (“told you!”) we learn some dance moves from the cast. When getting up to leave there are some honest six year old tears – because it was so good, because it is over and because we will not see Zog on stage again, even not if we stay here all afternoon. Sigh. Walking back to Victoria Station with a custard cream break on a bench in the summer sun someone much smaller than me whispers in my ear: “When I am an adult and you are a kid, I will take you to the theatre.”
**** out of five stars
Zog And The Flying Doctors has been created by Freckle Productions in association with the Rose Theatre, based on the children’s book of the same name by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
Music and Lyrics by Joe Stilgoe, directed by Katie Beard and Bobby Delaney
The show played in Cadogan Hall all the way through August, tickets from £19.50
Sadie takes the Stage 
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