In the Night Garden Live

So last Sunday we went to go and see In the Night Garden Live. We got tickets to go see the Manchester show while I was visiting my family up north.
Lily has always loved In the Night Garden, especially Upsy Daisy.

I was really excited to take her as she really enjoyed the Gruffalo show and so I thought she would love the In the Night Garden one just as much. 

We had the 4pm viewing to see The Pinky Ponk show. 

When we got there and lined up I bought Lily a little Upsy Daisy Toy to take in with her, she started to get excited and was clapping and pointing at all the Upsy Daisy things she could see. 

When we got into the showdome we got right to the front on the non premium section and so had great seats. Lily was looking around at everything going on and the ceiling of the dome had the Pinky Ponk flying around on it. She calls the Pinky Ponk aeroplane and kept shouting it.

The show was about to start and Lily was sat on my knee ready to watch. All of a sudden the room darkened and the roof went dark and the stars started to come out and twinkle above us and the In the night Garden introduction started playing. It looked amazing and I started pointing out the stars to Lily. Then she did something that I really didn't see coming. She burst out into tears and turned into me to hide. Somehow this part with the stars coming out really scared her.

After this it was really hard to calm her down and she kept crying for ages. She was the only one crying and I didn't know what to do. Im sure all the other parents weren't thinking anything about it but I actually felt a little embarrassed and felt like the other parents may have been thinking I was mean for not removing her from the room if she was scared. The reason I didn't was because I knew that as soon as she saw Upsy Daisy that she would cheer right up and I didn't want her to miss out on seeing Upsy Daisy.

It took Upsy Daisy ages to come on stage though and they kept teasing us with being able to hear her sing like she was on her way. So I kept saying "Upsy Daisy is coming" but she didn't and all I was thinking was come on Upsy Daisy so then I could get Lily to stop crying.

So we stayed, and after about 20 minutes she finally settled and started to enjoy the show. 

The characters were great. Makka Pakka and Iggle Piggle and Upsy Daisy were all people in costumes and the Tombliboos were puppets controlled by people dressed up in a green costume with hats. The show all related to In the Night Garden and it showed all parts of it. It even had the birds singing in the tree's which were projected onto the roof of the dome.

Lily really loved it when Upsy Daisy came on stage. She sang into her microphone thing and made bubbles because Makka Pakka's Sponge was stuck inside it. Then loads of bubbles were shot from a canon into the crowd and Lily loved that and started shouting bubbles. Unfortunately they didn't point them into our direction so none came to her. Which was a little disappointing.

The bit that Lily enjoyed the most was the part where they all dance to the music together at the end. Its always been Lily's favourite part of the Tv show and she always dances to it at home so I was so glad to see her get up and dance to it at the live show to.

It did seem that just as she had started to relax and enjoy it, that it was all over and done with. It was such a shame that the first part scared and upset her as I think that if the characters would of simply come out on stage she would have been okay. But as she was the only one crying I really can't put the show to fault just because of that. It really was a amazing show and they really do pull out all the stops to make it a full In the Night Garden experience.

Have you been to see the In the Night Garden show? What did you think?