The Ugly Duckling,

Friends with pre-school twin boys opted for this Travelling Light Theatre work, partly, I suspect, because it had that Hans Christian Andersen ring of authenticity about it.

Then a last-minute phone call – demands of work and all that – meant that I was hand-inhand with two tots revisiting the days when I took my own youngsters along as “beginning beginners”, as Dr Seuss described it.

The anxieties of youngsters negotiating a ten-minute wait and confronting a tip-up seat for the first time (“yes, they do go back with bang”) gave way to actors Nina Wyllie, Mark Kane, Derek Elwood and musician/actor Bob Karper indulging in silly start-up antics to capture everyone’s attention.

The farmyard scene, with noises for younger ones and references to a pig suffering with the flu, ensured that adults were given plenty of opportunity to exercise their laughter muscles.

My dynamic duo didn’t always laugh in the right places. Well, throwing paper leaves about as Mark Kane’s Ugly Duckling is cast out of the yard does appeal to a child’s cheeky side in our anti-littering society.

A mirror ball’s flashes of light, as part of an underwater sequence, was the “wow”

factor, and the trundle-on role of yellow plastic bath-time ducks on wheels a definite hit.

Tribute must go to this touring band, who have been on the road from Warwick to Bristol, via Totnes and Kirkcaldy, since November, for ensuring that there’s every chance that these little ducklings will be future swans.