The production is set to open at the Rose Theatre in October.
Theatre company Tall Stories has confirmed details of a UK tour for Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s picture book The Smeds and The Smoos, which will receive its world premiere at the Rose Theatre in Kingston from the 27th to the 31st October before embarking on an Autumn UK tour.
With the tour set to continue into 2022, it will include a Christmas season at the Leicester Curve from the 30th November until the 9th January. Further tour dates have yet to be confirmed.
Talking about the news, Julia Donaldson said: “It’s a whole twenty years since Tall Stories brought ‘The Gruffalo’ to the stage, and it’s been brilliant that since then they’ve also successfully adapted ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’, ‘Room on the Broom’ and ‘The Snail and the Whale’. So I’m thrilled that the company is now developing ‘The Smeds and the Smoos’, with its cast of aliens and its Romeo- and-Juliet-type plot (except that my story has a happy ending). I can’t wait to see the show, and I bet everyone’s going to love it!”
The Smeds and The Smoos was published by Alison Green Books (an imprint of Scholastic) in September 2019 and was the bestselling new picture book of that year. It has also been recently awarded the prestigious British Book Award – Children’s Book of the Year (Illustrated and Non- fiction).
On a far-off planet, Smeds and Smoos can’t be friends. So when a young Smed and Smoo fall in love and zoom off into space together, how will their families get them back? Music, laughs and interplanetary adventures for everyone aged 3 and up, from Tall Stories – the company that brought you The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom live on stage.
The production is set to be directed by Tall Stories’ artistic director Toby Mitchell, with movement direction
by Morag Cross, set and costume design by Barney George, lighting design by Peter Harrison, and music and
lyrics by Jon Fiber and Andy Shaw.
Tall Stories is currently touring The Snail and the Whale to venues across the country until August
and will also be performing The Gruffalo at Alexandra Palace, London, from the 30th July to 29th August.
For more information about The Smeds and The Smoos visit: https://www.tallstories.org.uk/the-smeds-and-the-smoos