There’s a Bear on My Chair review

“Visually exquisite qualities”

ReviewsFeb 21, 2025by Oliver JonesQueen Elizabeth Hall, London

Ben Thompson, Fred Davis, Elisa de Grey and Ailsa Dalling in There’s a Bear on My Chair at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Photo: Dan Tsantilis

Winning adaptation of the acclaimed children’s picture book, with near-miraculous puppetry and a lovely, caring message

There’s a satisfying sense of space, together with gorgeous pastel colours, on every page of Ross Collins’ amusing, yet instructive picture book about learning to share – winner of an inaugural Amnesty CILIP Honour. One of the many achievements of this world premiere staging – adapted and directed by leading UK puppet practitioner Toby Olié, who also designs the puppets, and aimed at two- to seven-year-olds as part of the Southbank Centre’s Imagine Children’s Festival – is that the show retains these expansive, visually exquisite qualities, while keeping hordes of excited little ones eagerly engaged.

On Amy Jane Cook’s deceptively simple set of askew rectangles, redolent of both scattered books and distant mountain ranges surrounding a single chair with a bright red cushion, we discover a mouse, voiced and operated by puppeteer-performers Ailsa Dalling and Ben Thompson in pale blue. Mouse is kitted out in a cosy jumper, and contentedly reading a tome titled Home Sweet Home. There’s a knock on the front door, and he vacates his spot to go and investigate – only for a gloriously expressive, life-size polar bear to sneak in and commandeer the prize perch. Operators Fred Davis and Elisa de Grey miraculously convince us that a cartoon bear has come to 3D life, as he scratches his head, clears his ears of wax or tilts back in the chair to snooze, a Bear News broadsheet flapping on his face as he snores.

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Closely following Collins’ book, our mouse’s vain attempts to undermine the usurping ursine are inspired by words that rhyme with ‘bear’: the offer of a free pear fails to tempt him away; a plan to scare him off wearing green underwear in no way distracts the bear from his avid phone texting – even if it elicits the loudest yelps of delight from the little ones.

Olié’s production also includes the events of Collins’ follow-up book, There’s a Mouse in My House, in which our mouse, now trained in taekwondo, takes over the bear’s Arctic igloo. And here, Olié adds hilarious details that enhance Collins’ overall narrative: I was particularly amused when mouse, wont to blast out soft rock whenever his adversary wants to sleep, performs a little Highland fling to the bagpipe interlude of John Farnham’s 80s hit You’re the Voice.

Of course, it all ends with everyone friends and sharing possessions. But there is a subtle, underlying awareness throughout of the increasing precariousness of a polar bear’s existence, most movingly conveyed when Cook’s set is transformed into an all-white Arctic wasteland, on which a small-scale bear puppet lopes his way in the dark to his light-filled home. Even our mouse, at his most vexed, concedes that “bears are rare, and need the utmost care”.

Production Details

Production nameThere’s a Bear on My Chair

VenueQueen Elizabeth Hall

LocationLondon, then at The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath from February 27

Starts18/02/2025

Ends23/02/2025

Press night19/02/2025

Running time50mins

AuthorRoss Collins

AdapterToby Olié

ComposerAdam Pleeth

DirectorToby Olié