Dogs Don't Do Ballet – review

It's mid-January: the tinsel is down, the holidays are over and panto season - though, incredibly, not quite finished - is almost behind us. Time for children's theatre to get packed away in the attic, to be brought out with all the decorations in December. Or so you'd think from most media coverage.

That's why we're launching Play time, a new series on family theatre shows, reviewed by grownups and kids together. I'm starting off by taking my daughter Aggie (almost four) to a puppet production of Dogs Don't Do Ballet at the Little Angel theatre in Islington, north London. It's an old favourite all-round: we love the book, about a girl and her tubby mutt, Biff, who'd rather practise pliés than wee on lampposts and gets his chance to shine at the Royal Ballet; we love the Little Angel, particularly its summer party complete with puppet parade; and we loved Dogs Don't Do Ballet when we first saw it here, this time last year. I'm interested to see what Aggie will make of it now that she's a bit older.

Visiting the Little Angel, tucked away down an alley in a quiet square, brings a few extra treats - although the smiley snowman outside the front door has now been moved on. You can peek past the pots of glue and boxes of nails in the workshop's window to see the puppetmakers at play - and maybe spot Larry the theatre cat having a nap.

The theatre itself, a former temperance hall, has a musty cosiness that can't help but remind you of your own childhood, whether it was spent watching cutting-edge puppet shows or not. Seating is unreserved and it's worth arriving early because there's always a lot of to-ing and fro-ing (kids are encouraged to sit by the aisle with their parents further to one side, so everyone gets a good view, but this does provoke the odd tantrum from both parties).

Dogs Don't Do Ballet - wittily written by Anna Kemp and cheerily illustrated by Sara Ogilvie - was adapted for the stage by David Duffy, the Little Angel's technical manager, and his wife, Andrea Sadler, one of the show's two puppeteers. The other is Ronnie Le Drew, a Little Angel mainstay who is perhaps best known for performing Zippy on the TV series Rainbow.

The book begins by introducing Biff, whereas the adaptation adds a little jumble-sale skit - with rollicking piano music - and introduces a new character, Marjorie (played by Sadler), who is the hapless assistant of the book's Miss Polly (Le Drew, draped in red velvet), a faded Royal Ballet star turned dance teacher. When Aggie first saw the show I could tell she was frustrated by the different opening, but this time - instead of squirming and asking 'Where's Biff?' a million times - she enjoyed the audience interaction of this sequence, especially when Miss Polly gets the kids to wiggle their fingers and point their toes. (Aggie's just started a tots ballet class so loves showing off here.) Last time, she didn't really register that Miss Polly was played by a man; this time, it cracks her up and she finds it equally hilarious when Sadler dons a flat cap and moustache to play the girl's grumpy dad. I noticed that they keep the lights on for this prologue, only dimming them after a few minutes, which seemed to ease the kids into the show.

The little girl who owns Biff is anonymous in the original story, but becomes Anna (named after the book's author) in the adaptation. The puppet Biff, who resembles a well-loved and suitably dog-eared cuddly toy, is voiced with all manner of jovial ruffs and crestfallen howls by Le Drew (most of these are echoed exuberantly by the children). Le Drew's improvisations around the children's reactions are seamless, and Aggie giggles at Sadler's deft clowning with a string of dancing sausages and a kazoo.

I'd forgotten a stunning fantasy sequence depicting Biff's bad dream, in which pairs of magic ballet tights and two red shoes dance demonically to the sound of Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights. I peek at Aggie to see if it scares her, but she's spellbound.

The show lasts 45 minutes and, last year, I was amazed that Aggie stayed with it to the end. That's partly because it's brilliantly efficient. There are some ingenious shifts between scenes, not least when an usher's tray full of ice lollies turns into an orchestra pit full of instruments in time for Biff's Covent Garden triumph. We leave the theatre on a high and Aggie takes full advantage: we end up going for a lunchtime ice cream ( Udderlicious, a shop with its own swing, is a bit of theatre in itself). Inevitably, pink ice-cream is named the best bit of the day when we get home. But I'd like to think we've discovered that children's theatre (like dogs, pirouetting or otherwise) is for life - not just for Christmas.