On July 17th, The Knockturnal had the pleasure of attending Disney’s “Winnie-the-Pooh: The New Musical Stage Adaptation.”
There’s nothing ado with Winnie the Pooh.
Disney’s Winnie the Pooh is a delightful little production following AA Milne’s beloved characters as they go about doing…well, they don’t do much at all.
As our characters confront mundane and innocuous situations, they come up with solutions with profound yet kid-friendly implications. Tigger and Piglet have a stick racing competition. Which stick won? The brown one! How to determine the winner then? Everyone wins! It’s philosophy for your five-year old.
Winnie and friends are voiced and brought to life by puppeteers. The movement of the puppets is limited, and it sometimes feels as if you are watching humans lug around giant stuffed animals. Initially, this was distracting, but eventually, I came to see just the characters on the stage.
The production is light on musical numbers, action and Christopher Robin’s presence, so children may have a tough time staying engaged by singing along, getting excited by the story of relating to their kid proxy on stage. But the meandering anthropomorphic animals are fun and whimsical enough they left nary a fidgeting kid in the audience.
Disney’s Winnie the Pooh is a great family outing with little kids, albeit for ones with a high degree of patience and appreciation for the simpler things in life.