Michael Bond’s well-mannered, sticky-pawed bear has seldom been so busy. A new film, Paddington in Peru, is released this autumn and a stage musical is due next year. But first, here is a merry interactive experience in which a handful of actors lead audiences through a series of games to prepare for a Marmalade Day jamboree at 32 Windsor Gardens.
Please look after this bear, Paddington fans may well think to themselves as they start in a gift shop styled as Mr Gruber’s antiques emporium, where endless ursine merchandise lines the shelves amid the bric-a-brac. Then we follow marmalade splodges and paw prints on to a train carriage that transports us, with a nifty video design, past London locations (Bond Street is a nice touch) as Lord Kitchener’s calypso songs add to the celebratory tone.
As you are welcomed inside the Browns’ stripy-wallpapered home, you instantly sense the care in Rebecca Brower’s design. But there is frustratingly little time to linger over the little touches. Mrs Brown, once untangled from some bunting, delivers a swift origin story for our very rare sort of bear, whom we hear causing commotion next door. Through we go to a paint-spattered room to pick up giant jigsaw pieces that, once assembled, make vibrant Paddington portraits.
Our hosts include Mrs Bird and some less familiar characters, dressed with splashes of orange – tights, a blouse, a neckerchief – by costume designer Stewart J Charlesworth. A pattern is quickly established: Paddington’s presence is felt nearby (the kitchen ceiling drips from his overflowing bath) as the group work together on simple tasks under an actor’s watchful eye. They keep things brisk, as the next group of visitors will be arriving in a few minutes.
Paddington readers know him as a bear who makes the ordinary extraordinary. That’s not always the case here. I’m all for games that encourage kids to tidy up but am not sure how fun it is to sort Mrs Bird’s shopping into a colour-coded fridge. However, upon ducking into the larder, a warmth glows from the embers of a stylish lighting design (Terry Cook for Woodroffe Bassett), and from a letter to Aunt Lucy that we hear Paddington read as illustrations appear on the walls. Here Katie Lyons’ script is evocative and emotive – elsewhere it has many comic touches but becomes syrupy too.
Lasting just over an hour, the experience – creatively produced by the Path Entertainment Group and directed by Tom Maller for Immersive Octopus – is often pleasingly hands-on, especially in a Peruvian adventure room. But the lively episode when we gather oranges and roll them into a marvellous preserve-making contraption would be hugely boosted by a citrus scent or another sensory element. You could say that comes with the marmalade sandwich available at the climactic street party. Mind you, that’ll be an extra £5.
If the beloved bear’s late entrance could have greater impact, this is nonetheless a series of gentle and fondly rendered escapades for all ages (probably best suited for under-eights). There’s little for a young audience to get grizzly about.
At County Hall, London, until 30 March
