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Unicorn Theatre

London's finest kids' theatre
  • Theatre | Off-West End
  • Tower Bridge
  • Recommended
Anya Ryan
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Time Out says

This light, bright children's theatre has two performance spaces and an increasingly formidable reputation. It is also the largest children's theatre in the UK, making work for kids up to the age of 13. Producing new shows as well as spins on classic texts, the work is consistently exciting, entertaining and even educational. 

The building itself is full of quirky flourishes, including scratchy wall illustrations, a piano, and a kid-tempting range of snacks sold at its Unicornershop. But it's only been in situ there since 2005. Unicorn Theatre's history stretches right back to 1947, when it was known as Mobile Theatre, a theatre company that toured post-war Britain bringing performances to culture-strapped young people.

There's still a seriousness to its regular programming, with shows tackling gory Greek myths, exploring opera, or bringing in the most exciting experimental theatremakers around. But the venue also comes into its own with its joyful string of hit Christmas shows, as well as long-running favourites like 'Baby Show', which gets the next generation of theatregoers started very, very early.  

Details

Address
147
Tooley St
London
SE1 2HZ
Transport:
Tube: London Bridge
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What’s on

Pocket Money

Pocket Money has been cancelled. Leftfield mischief makers Nigel Barrett and Louise Mari offer a cheery interactive play about… personal finance!!! Clearly on paper that sound like a tough sell for its seven-to-11-year-old audience, but expect Pocket Money – made in collaboration with financial experts – to be weird and silly way before anyone’s forced to learn anything. 
  • Children's

Home Song

The Unicorn teams up with Tawala Theatre for one of its sporadic shows for the very young.  Home Song is aimed at children – babies really – aged six months to 18 months, and is a multi-sensory show that follows Adwoa and her mum as they explore the true meaning of home. Expecting singing and general loveliness in a show that will inevitably be more impressionistic than narrative driven.
  • Children's

Santa’s First Christmas

Unicorn boss Rachel Bagshaw adapts Mac Barnett and Sydney Smith’s picturebook, in which Santa’s kind-hearted elves decide to fill in for their boss and let him experience Christmas for the first time. It’s directed and choreographed by James Cousins, with songs by Harry Blake. For ages four plus.
  • Children's

Huddle

4 out of 5 stars
This review is from November 2018. Huddle returns to the Unicorn for 2026. Penguins, never exactly out of fashion, are particularly on-trend this season thanks to the emperor penguins who made global headlines after a BBC camera crew controversially rescued them from a gully.Huddle, from Filskit Theatre, doesn’t offer anything quite so nerve-wracking, but it’s certainly more good news for everyone’s favourite flightless birds. Against a deadpan animated backdrop of a larger colony, Joseph Barnes-Phillips’s Papa Penguin squawks and waddles and gets up to general penguin business. Of course, he looks like a dude in a penguin suit, and part of the charm of Huddle is how far the creative team have gone with this: Papa Penguin is a sort of semi-anthropomorphised creature, with a small clutch of physical possessions that he hoards on his rusty old sled, above which hangs a line he uses to hang fish on. It’s a slightly surreal but charming flourish.He also appears not to have a mate, but is nonetheless blessed with an egg that duly hatches into Victoria Dyson’s Penguin Chick. The rest of Katy Costigan and Sarah Shephard’s production is basically two adults making penguin noises at each other – and it’s just delightful, packed with nice little details like Dyson’s costume (by Maxwell Nicholson-Lailey), which sheds layers of grey fluff as she slowly advances towards adulthood. Some mild peril kicks in at the end, as Papa Penguin is forced to head out to sea to get more fish and...
  • Children's
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