On Saturday I joined a colleague and his delightful four year old twins for a picnic at Old Deer Park in Richmond. We were surrounded by other parents enjoying the finally-arrived summer sunshine whose youngsters (many of them somewhat younger than four) ran around happily. Our eyes were constantly drawn to the huge weirdly-shaped show dome and to our watches as we waited for the magic time when we could enter the “In the night garden live” space and meet Igglepiggle, Upsy Daisy and Makka Pakka. The girls had patiently explained these characters to me.
We packed up the picnic things – I was told that the characters also had a red picnic rug - and weaved through the buggies to join the numerous excited parents and toddlers. But all was not well. The concerned ushers told us that there had been a power failure and no one was able to enter. We continued to enjoy the sunshine and the party atmosphere.
Then after a few more minutes we were told that the 2pm show would have to be cancelled. There was much wailing and disappointed tears – and that was just the parents. The ushers came out in force to try to soothe frayed tempers and disappointed tears. Full refunds were promised as well as tickets for another performance.
Luckily I know the area. So we avoided too much drama with the twins by diverting them quickly to two large climbing frame filled playgrounds next to the Pools on the Park. With the added bribery of some sweets, they were off and having a fabulous time. After 40 minutes or so, while the girls played happily and we made frantic phone calls, we decided it was time for a walk.
So we took trekked across the grass, through the wild flower area, to the riverside. We played Pooh sticks on a small bridge over a stream and then took great delight walking across the Richmond Lock bridge. The novelty of a no cars path was lost on the girls. But there was a mixed eight rowing boat going through the lock which the girls did find interesting. At the other side we looked down on ducks and geese and purchased ice creams (with blue sauce!) from a van there. Then we sat by the riverside, watching the ducks and kayaks while applying the ice cream liberally to our faces.
Then we wandered back and obtained our tickets for next week from the Box Office. People were queuing for the 4pm show at this stage so we weren’t able to get in to purchase toy characters as had been promised to the girls. So back to the playground for a while. Later, the girls persuaded dad to get them their character toys and a large Pinky Ponk airship balloon. The girls will be seeing the show next Saturday.
Yes, it was hugely disappointing to miss the show. And I really felt for those parents who had travelled a long distance and had tearful toddlers to appease. But I have to say that the staff handled a bad situation really well. They were even on-the-ball to offer help and advise to those who used Twitter to express their distress. Producer Andrew Collier advised:
"I would like to say sorry to everyone who didn't get to see the show at 2pm today. We will be giving each of you a full refund and tickets to another performance later in the run. Despite our very best preparations a failure of both our power supply and its back-up meant we were unable to perform the 2pm show. This is the first time in four years that this has happened. We will do everything we can to make sure it never happens again."
http://www.nightgardenlive.com/?gclid=CIbDrqfpjbgCFUfLtAodEVcAQw The show continues at Richmond until 14th July before moving on to Birmingham and Manchester.
