Seusical

This difficult show is a joyful musical combination of the best parts of a goodly number of the children’s books written by Doctor Theodore Seuss Giesel which included Horton Hears a Who!, Horton Hatches the Egg and perhaps the most well known – The Cat in the Hat - and the show indeed opened on a bare stage with the brightly coloured hat in the centre! The story is wonderfully complicated about the mysterious Land of Who set on a speck of dust on a sprig of clover and guarded over by a kindly elephant called Horton – played by Jamie Dougall. The mischievous Cat in the Hat (Kirsty Dougall) acts as mentor to the Boy (Sean Miller) who is converted into Jojo, son of the Mayor of “Whoville-on-the-Clover” (played by Matthew King) and his wife (who seems to be nameless, played by Ava MacGuire). Horton has a next door neighbour Gertrude McFuzz (Sinead O’Hara) and begins to fall for her – pure fantasy – an elephant and a bird! The adventures and safety of the Who’s is put at risk when Horton is ambushed and the clover is stolen by the hoodlum Wickersham Brothers (James De Groot, Jamie MacPherson and Michael Cameron). The story roams far and wide with Mr and Mrs Mayor sending Jojo to military school on the advice of the Cat under the supervision of the loopy General Schmitz (Stuart Green).
Other characters were the three Bird Girls (Gabby Rose, Erin Smith and Emily Burgess), the evil Sour Kangaroo (Erin Beveridge) who kidnaps Horton and a chorus of Jungle Wool Creatures and the population of the Who’s – all of whom and the main principal characters were spun from the mind of the magical Doctor Seuss! An interesting show requiring much concentration – and I think the Who’s did survive to live happily ever after! In keeping with the eccentricity of the show, the Musical Director was billed as “Dr Seuss” in charge of eleven very competent musicians called “The Things.”      

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