Although it’s not quite in the ‘Mousetrap’ leagues, ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ has played in the West End for long enough that members of its original audiences will be eligible to vote in the next general election.
Its longevity probably owes just as much to the multigenerational impact of Judith Kerr’s original book as to the production itself, which is a valiant adaptation of some frankly pretty weird source material.
The synopsis, if you need it: little Sophie and her mum are having tea. A tiger crashes the party and eats literally all the food in the house, then leaves. Sophie’s dad comes home and takes the family out to a café for dinner. The tiger never comes back.
That’s about it – and it doesn’t make for a particularly satisfying stage structure, with all the tigery action in the middle third, and the beginning and end padded out with domestic slapstickery and songs. It gives the production the steady pace of a variety show.
The bit with the tiger is undoubtedly the main event, and there’s some fun stagecraft here. I loved the magic tricks that made biscuits, sandwiches, cakes and strawberry milkshake disappear before our eyes (with some great guzzling sound effects). As for our striped antihero, he appears as an impressive half-costume, half-marionette which had my three-year-old whispering ‘Is it a *real* tiger?’
But neither I nor the toddler were big fans of the (possibly pragmatic but fairly major) decision to silence the tiger, who has plenty of dialogue in Kerr’s book but resorts to exaggeratedly polite mime on stage. His lack of speech somehow transforms him from sinister-but-seductive to creepily alien – even when he’s twerking while raiding the fridge.
But maybe that’s nitpicking, as huge chunks of the show – and not just the tigery bit – had the kids in the crowd enthusiastically joining in. The performances, songs and set design were as polished as you’d hope from a show that’s been running so long. But it’s the IP that’s the real crowd-puller here: there’s still plenty of magic to this timeless story, and if you’ve read the book to death at home then this production is well worth a go. My tip: hit up the merch stand before the show starts if you want to take your own (plushy) tiger home for tea.