Julia Donaldson Brings Her Beloved Stories to Life

I always love performing in theatres and it’s especially exciting to have had opportunities to act at the Rose, which really does feel like the Elizabethan theatre on which it’s modelled.

We hugely enjoyed our run here last year with The Gruffalo, the Giant and the Mermaid, and the theatre was just the right intimate feel for our most recent show, The Gruffalo, the Witch and the Warthog. It was a perfect setting for our giant bookshelf from which the characters emerged, and inviting enough for audiences to join in fun songs like ‘The Superworm Song’.

Giving audiences variety is important to me - The Gruffalo, the Witch and the Warthog featured seven different books, some of which were very familiar and others surprising and new. The staged adaptation of Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book offered both puppets and pirates, while The Baddies - think a spooky ghost, roaring troll, and wicked witch - arrives at the Rose in October.

My stories and songs have been inspired by things that happened to my children, memories of my own childhood, things people say, places I go to, old folk tales and fairy stories. Inspiration can come from anywhere and everywhere. The hard part for me is not getting the idea, but turning it into a story with 
a beginning, a middle and an end.

"I write in my study, on trains,
in the library and even just in my head"

Ideas appear at any time, when I am walking, swimming or even in the bath. When I am ready to write down some thoughts, I usually start off with a pencil or pen and a big exercise book if the story is a rhyming text. As I go along, I write every catchy phrase and rhyming word I can think of and do lots of doodles along the way. I write in my study, on trains, in the library and even just in my head.

I hope that children and families see my stories on stage and they feel transported to a different world - and that they enjoy meeting some of their favourite characters, as well as some new ones. My hope is that everyone will be inspired to read more stories together and perhaps try acting them out, too.

Photo by Steve Ullathorne

First published in August 2024