Head outdoors for fun family entertainment

For more than three decades, Wind In The Willows has been essential family outdoor entertainment in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

This season’s production by the Australian Shakespeare Company starts off in a picturesque part of the gardens incorporating a lake as a backdrop.

This is where families spread out their picnic rugs as Head Chief Rabbit (Wolfgang Reed) and the weasel (Paul Morris) get Kenneth Grahame’s classic story under way by enlisting the help of children in the audience as “rabbits”.

One by one the other main characters are introduced, including Mole (Cristina Wells), Ratty (Ash Garner), Badger (Kevin Hopkins) and of course Toad (Scott Jackson) as they keep the songs and the banter going, including one-liners directed at the adults in the audience.

To keep the audience involved, there is a change of scenery half-way through the show and everyone moves the short distance to where Toad Hall is located.

There is more audience involvement as children are invited to join a rescue mission for little Otter Portly who is lost in the Wild Wood, and everyone walks to the nearby gardens.

Tinkerbell and the Dream Fairies being performed at Rippon Lea Estate.

The action ramps up with Toad involved in several road accidents and a brush with the law, and then being held captive in his mansion by the weasel and his supporters. Naturally there is a happy ending.

Wind In The Willows runs for 90 minutes without interval, which keeps older children engaged but can prove a stretch for very young kids. Nevertheless, on a sunny summer’s day it provides an entertaining piece of outdoor theatre.

Another children’s production currently being staged by the Australian Shakespeare Company is Tinkerbell and the Dream Fairies at Rippon Lea Estate in Elsternwick.

Set in the gardens near the historic mansion, this shorter production of 75 minutes without interval combines lively songs, clever acrobatics plus humorous comments pitched at the adults, as Tinkerbell teams up with the fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to help find her lost wings. There is plenty of interaction with the children in the audience, many of whom dressed up in their favourite costumes.

Info: The Wind In The Willows is being staged at Royal Botanic Gardens until January 28; Tinkerbell and the Dream Fairies is being staged at Rippon Lea Estate until January 28. Bookings: shakespeareaustralia.com.au