This May, catch the most lovable monster in children’s literature and
his antics live in action at Qatar National Theatre. By Anand Holla
In 1999, writer-playwright Julia Donaldson’s endearing children’s book, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, gifted scores of kids and even adults across the world a most lovable monster – The Gruffalo.
Penned for readers aged three to seven and written in rhyming couplets, featuring repetitive verse with minor variance, the book follows the story of the Gruffalo’s encounter with a little brown mouse in the deep dark wood.
Not only did it sell more than 13mn copies and got translated into more than 50 languages, The Gruffalo also won a series of prizes for children’s literature, and has been regularly turned into plays on both the West End and Broadway.
Donaldson and Scheffler’s creation, which could even be the most successful author/illustrator partnership in picture book publishing, The Gruffalo “is a modern classic, and both mouse and monster have become stars of stage and screen as well as story-time favourites.”
Now, Qatar’s young audience will get a chance to catch both mouse and monster live in action as The Gruffalo theatre play rolls out on May 3, 4, 5 and 6 at Qatar National Theatre at 9am and 10.30am, every day. The hour-long play meant especially for children aged 3-14 years, will be in English.
Sample one of the several delightful exchanges between the characters – Fox: “A gruffalo? What’s a gruffalo?” Mouse: “A gruffalo! Why, didn’t you know? He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.”
The story behind the birth of this iconic book – it was the UK’s best-selling picture book of 2000, and the listeners of BBC Radio 2 voted it the best bedtime story in 2009 – leads to another story. When Donaldson came across a Chinese tale about a clever girl who tricks a hungry tiger into believing she is the Queen of the Jungle and scares him away, she decided to turn it into a nice picture book story.
Fortunately, since she couldn’t think of anything to rhyme with ‘tiger’. She then created her own monster whose name had to end in O, to rhyme with ‘doesn’t he know’. “In fact, if you’ve ever wondered why the Gruffalo looks the way he does, that also has a lot to do with things that just happened to rhyme, like toes and nose, and black and back,” says a note on the story, on the Gruffalo’s official website.
Until 1993, when her first picture book, A Squash and a Squeeze, was published, Donaldson was a freelance songwriter. At the age of 44, she was suddenly approached by a publisher, turning what had been a song into a book. Since then, she has written more than 160 books, which span plays, picture stories, novels and educational books, and are usually in rhymes.
To bring the fearsome fantasy creature visually to life, though, took Scheffler’s prowess with his pencil. The note adds, “He might have looked quite different; at first, Axel sketched out a monster who was even more frightening than the one we know!
He also thought about making the animals wear clothes, but in the end this didn’t happen, perhaps to Axel’s relief: imagine trying to dress a snake!”
The follow-up was a rage, too. Five years after the publication of The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s Child was introduced to the world, starring in her very own adventure – and proved an instant hit. It was voted The Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book of the Year Awards in 2005. Last year, the Guardian pointed out that Donaldson is Britain’s bestselling author, beating even JK Rowling.
The books have been made into popular films, featuring the voices of Robbie Coltrane, James Corden, John Hurt and Helena Bonham Carter, and have also been successfully adapted for the stage. Tall Stories’ enchanting musical adaptation of the book, for instance, premiered in 2001 and has toured the UK, Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
For the Doha shows of the play, you can book your tickets by contacting Nawhaal Hanadi on 50019251, or Mohammed on 66422226, [email protected], Tickets are priced at QR80 per student/parent. With the shows filling up fast, you may want to book your ticket at the soonest.