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We went to see Red Riding Hood by Jake Brunger & Pippa Cleary at The Pleasance Theatre Islington this December, 2015.

Red Riding Hood is a lovely festive treat for the children at the weekend, so great to go to a small local theatre and have a great theatrical production for the same price as a cinema ticket and all within the perfect length.. an hour.

Last minute glance at the husband who had experienced office festivities the night before led me to take the correct decision to leave him and the baby at home and replace husband with my sister leaving us with much more manageable yet excitable 5 and 7 year old boys to take.

They were the perfect age for this somewhat untold tale of Little Red Riding Hood’s trip through the forest. No real spoilers but hadn’t realised her long lost father and the wolf were so closely related…

The Pleasance is a lovely little theatre, we love the local theatres with free seating, and you choose the seats when you arrive. Jackson’s Lane at Highgate is the same. It means that children can move seats to actually see the stage and if you arrive remotely early you get great seats. In the interests of my review duties, I took a couple of pictures and was told off immediately by a fellow theatre goer but it made a refreshing change for stern looks to be in my direction rather than the boys.

Great cast of five, half-decent singing and in some cases great singing and so refreshing to have a performance with such gusto for the kids in the afternoon. Really good warm up for panto season! Really engaging acting, storytelling and set. None of this being fobbed off with miming activities, it felt like a proper miniature production and the kids loved it.

We take the kids to the theatre quite a lot and whenever we go locally it reminds me that they really don’t need £50 tickets in the West End and that live theatre is live theatre and we are so lucky to have lots of smaller local theatres near us in North London. The chances are that you can get an hour’s great theatre for less than £15 which stands the kids in great stead for a life of theatre going leaving the West End as the occasional treat.

‘I liked it when the Wolf sang his song that was really funny.’ No1 son aged 7
‘I liked it when William the Woodcutter kept saying he was a very forgetful person and had been dropped on the head as a baby.’ No 2 son aged 5

Decision to leave husband at home vindicated during final audience participation number which my sister and me and the children loved and he would have loathed, seriously catchy little number that we all went home singing.

Emma France is European Director for mothers2mothers www.m2m.org when she is not being a mother to three wild boys. Instagram @mummylovesthree Twitter @1EFrance. Emma was provided with tickets to see Red Riding Hood but all views are her own.