Dr Seuss's oddball rhymes have haunted the bedtimes of many children and parents, and this hit theatrical adaptation of 'The Lorax' does a good job of bringing them to life for the stage.
'The Lorax' is a dastardly tale of ecological woe, in couplets. It concerns the Once-ler - a young entrepreneurial type who massacres a forest paradise to produce a totally pointless consumer product called a 'thnood'.
In Max Webster's swaggering show, this bleach-haired bicycling zany is played with tremendous angular charm and energy by the returning Simon Paisley-Day. But he's basically upstaged by a puppet: the whiskery, gingery beaverish Lorax, the spokesperson for the troubled trees.
Puppeteers David Ricardo-Pearce, Ben Thompson and Laura Caldow are fantastically skilful bringing the Lorax into being. He talks like a retired Brigadier and pounces and twists like an otter as he tries and fails to persuade the avid Once-ler to moderate his activities. There's plenty food for thought in a show that, sadly, will still be topical for many years to come.