News: Little Angel Theatre turns 60, with a spring-summer season of celebrations announced

The iconic Little Angel Theatre this year celebrates its 60th anniversary, and have announced a spring-summer season to coincide with the special year.

Performances include a “choose your own adventure” digital production of Sean Taylor’s Where the Bugaboo Lives, directed by artistic director Samantha Lane and designed by Ellie Mills, Julia Donaldson’s The Smartest Giant in Town in a new co-production with Fierylight, directed by Samantha Lane.

There will be a new digital series People Behind the Puppets, which celebrates 60 years of ground-breaking puppetry design, including Little Angel’s own puppet-makers Toby Olié and Alison Alexander.

Inspired by a new Joseph Coelho poem, The Wishing Tree will see ‘magical trees’ appear throughout Islington, designed by artists including Sam Wilde and Ingrid Hu, with puppets made by local children.

Additionally, created with young people at Great Ormond Street, there will be a co-production with GOSH ‘If Not Here…Where?’, which has been adapted into a digital production that can continue to tour hospitals and hospices throughout the summer.

Since March 2020 Little Angel’s free digital series Watch, Make, Share has been viewed over 757,000 times in 90 countries with more than 140 videos created.

Little Angel first opened its doors on Saturday 24 November 1961 when a troupe of enthusiastic puppeteers under the leadership of John Wright found a derelict temperance hall in Islington and transformed it into a magical little theatre, specially designed for children. Now under the leadership of artistic director Samantha Lane and executive director Peta Swindall, boundary-pushing puppetry is at the heart of this unique theatre, which ignites the imaginations of the youngest minds.

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