Puppet Festival: Jack and the Beanstalk (Sort Of)
Aimed at ages 4-11
Duration: 1 hour approx.
Family theatre and rock star legend Kid Carpet is back with a totally brand new show!
Kid Carpet hates panto. The Noisy Animals absolutely love it. So guess what they’re doing? Yep. A panto. Now there’s a beanstalk in the middle of everything and nobody’s quite sure what’s going on.
Featuring Bear, Gorilla, Badger and Hedgehog (with possible appearances from Hedgehog’s golden eggs), this is Jack & the Beanstalk like it’s been thrown in a blender with a drum machine and dodgy celebrity lookalikes. Part air guitar workshop, part magical mess, this lo-fi, hi-tech, big-beat bonkers show is stuffed with songs, silliness and surprise grannies.
Bring your kids. Bring yer nan. Bring snacks. It’s theatre, but it’s loud, proud and completely off its bean(stalk).
Perfect for ages 4–11, families, party monsters and fans of noisy nonsense.
From the makers of Kid Carpet & The Noisy Animals, Noisy Holiday, Kid Carpet & The Noisy Neighbours, Noisy Nativity, Kid Carpet & The Noisy Garden Centre, Kid Carpet’s Super Mega Rockin’ Rock Show and more!
With help from Chris Collier, Stephanie Kempson and Natalie Otto. Illustration by Hannah Broadway.
About the Company
Kid Carpet uses small world play, video projection, lo-fi tech wizardry and catchy songs to bring joy, interaction and belly laughs to family audiences through disruptively charming shows and performances.
Kid Carpet has been making theatre for families since 2011 as an antidote to the twee, hyper-sweet and Disneyfied world of work made for children, finding a place for something wilder which embraces the excited chaos of childhood, while simultaneously talking to the adults in the room about the absurd struggles of parenthood and family life.
The Noisy Animals are four small children’s toys; Bear, Gorilla, Hedgehog and Badger who Kid Carpet puppeteers in front of a live onstage camera, projecting them supersize and performing together. Like a lone parenting dad with an unruly mob of children.
Website: kidcarpet.co.uk
Instagram: kid_carpet
Facebook: kidcarpet
Age guidance
Jack and the Beanstalk (Sort Of) is aimed at ages 4-11. Our shows for this age group have storylines that can be followed and enjoyed by children from around age 4, and require a little more concentration than shows recommended from age 3. They work for a wide age range and may also use more complex ideas, humour, dialogue or song lyrics that older children will get more out of. There is nothing really scary in these shows but they can be a bit more dramatic than those for the youngest children, including in their use of sound and lighting, and characters may face some perils.
This show has standard seating for our Studios. There are rows with chairs and soft blocks facing the stage, and there may be some mats on the floor at the front. There will be up to 60 people watching the show.
There is verbal interaction, with the performer asking for input to the story and classic panto moments such as “he/ she’s behind you”. The audience will also be invited to join in with actions. At one point balls will be shot into the audience and children can collect them and take them back to the stage. Otherwise, the audience stay in their seats while watching the show, but you can leave and re-enter the auditorium at any time.
As in the traditional story, there is a giant who it is feared will eat people, and there is a chase, but this is a light-hearted and comedic version where no-one comes to harm. You hear the giant coming before you see him, represented by puppet legs and feet.
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