Seussical Jr.

Seussical Jr. sends an elephant with unusually good hearing to defend a speck of dust that he insists contains a whole civilisation. Horton is mocked, put on trial and left holding an abandoned egg, and the only creature who believes him is a small bird nobody notices.

The Cat in the Hat threads the story together, pulling characters and worlds out of thin air and daring the audience to keep up. Two plots braid: the Whos of a microscopic world trying to make themselves heard, and Gertrude McFuzz trying to make Horton see her. Loyalty is tested by ridicule, and a promise made lightly turns out to cost a great deal.

The score is by Stephen Flaherty with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, who wrote the book together; the show was conceived with Eric Idle and draws its characters from Dr. Seuss, chiefly Horton Hears a Who! and Horton Hatches the Egg. This is the shortened edition, adapted from the full-length musical for younger companies.

The tone is bright, fast and deliberately silly, built on rhyme and rhythm rather than spectacle. Underneath the nonsense the material is unusually direct about being disbelieved, standing by a friend and the worth of things too small to see. Children follow the jokes; adults tend to notice the argument underneath them.

It works for families and for first-time theatregoers, and it rewards anyone with a fondness for the source books. Live, the pleasure is watching a young company throw itself at a score that never slows down, and a jungle assembled out of very little.