Cats and dogs reign in a stage adaptation of the long-running children’s book series Hairy Maclary at the Plenty Ranges Arts Centre this month.
New Zealand author Lynley Dodd says there is a special pleasure in seeing her famous stories played out in front of children. “It’s tremendous fun. It’s the best thing being in an audience with children,’’ she says. ‘‘There’s plenty of audience involvement. They love to shout out and give answers.”
Dodd had no input in writing or staging the adaptation Hairy Maclary and Friends, but retains the right to correct anything that strays from the book’s intentions.
The show, which sold out at the Sydney Opera House and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, is produced by Scottish company Nonsense Room Productions.
Dodd says the main difficulty for the company was producing costumes that recreated the characters as ‘‘human dogs’’.
The show relies on narration because her animals don’t talk. Dodd says the characters, including dalmatian Bottomley Potts (who’s ‘‘covered in spots’’) and dachshund Schnitzel von Krumm (‘‘with a very low tum’’), are loosely based on animals she’s known.
The book series has stretched to 20 volumes, including a recently released book about mischievous black cat Slinky Malinki.
From the outset, Dodd was intent on making the books’ rollicking rhymes a good read for adults as well as children.
‘‘As a child I loved the musicality of language. It’s got to be fun and have rhythm. ’’
■ See the show at Plenty Ranges Arts Centre, 35 Ferres Boulevard, South Morang, at noon on September 27. Tickets: $34.90. Details: visit plentyrangestheatre.com.au or call 9217 2317.
