1 April 2014

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CHILDREN’S author Geraldine Durrant, who is responsible for the Town Council’s PR, has waved her storybook heroine off on a UK wide tour in Pirate Gran a new stage adaptation of her books by the award-winning Scamp Theatre Company.

Geraldine attended the opening weekend of the show at Watford Palace theatre where she met actress Pauline Goldsmith playing the eponymous Pirate Gran – and Gran’s crocodile Nippy who has been made by Toby Olie, one of the puppeteers who designed and operated War Horse.

“It was a real once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Geraldine. “The show was sold-out and sitting in the dark with a theatre full of small children watching Pirate Gran come to life was magical – as an author you don’t usually see people enjoying your characters.

“Scamp are renowned for their imaginative productions and their innovative use of stage props, and somehow Gran’s sitting room changes into a ship, and she and Nippy win the Pirate Games in the world’s first instance of Dressage and Steeplechase done live, on stage, on a crocodile.”

With the critics’ plaudits already ringing in their ears, Gran and her pirate crew are now off on a UK tour which includes appearances at the South Bank’s Udderbelly Festival, a month in Edinburgh, and at Eastbourne’s Devonshire theatre in May where Geraldine will be taking all her grandchildren to see the show.

“A lot of people have spent a lot of time and talent bringing Pirate Gran to life and having finally seen the result I couldn’t be more thrilled or more grateful that of all the books in all the world, they stumbled across mine,” laughed Geraldine.

Geraldine meets Pirate Gran played by Pauline Goldsmith. “I was surprised to discover that Pirate Gran is Scottish as I had always imagined she was Cockney, but having seen Pauline’s fabulous performance I now realise how very wrong I was,” said Geraldine.