A Day Out at Jack V Giant at the Polka Theatre

*AD – this experience was gifted to our family for this post. All opinions, as always, are our own.

The Polka Theatre is one that always sticks in my mind as such a wonderful hub for children to play, explore and test boundaries! You see, the theatre itself is quite large, with a few different dedicated spaces for children. There is a dress up area, books that are free to read, colouring, and a magnetic building block wall in one room. An outdoor, treehouse inspired play house encourages outdoor play. There is a cafe, with chalk boards, to keep children busy while adults enjoy a meal or coffee. Even the hallways are full of colourful works of art and interesting displays that are fun to look at! The whole place just feels like it was designed for children!

We went along to the Polka Theatre to see Jack V Giant, a new twist on the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack in Jack V Giant is a brave girl, who likes imagination, does her chores and adores her father. She is being raised by only her father, with no explanation to where her mother is or note of it being odd that she only has one parent. Her father works in the mines, getting gold for The Big Man, who seems to own the entire town. Well, that is, until there isn’t any gold left so her father loses his job. This is when everything changed for Jack; her father without a job, asks her to sell her cow – her very best friend.

On the way to sell her cow, she ends up finding a magical forest creature who gives her beans. Her father finds the beans useless, getting into a fight, before a giant beanstalk grows outside their house. Jack, a brave girl, climbs the beanstalk to see what is inside. Finding that at the top of the beanstalk is a giant who looks quite similar to Donald Trump – complete with a giant puppet like head! The Big Man as he is called shows that he took all of the gold, and uses his Alex (basically an Alexa) to talk about his plan with the people who live below him.

Jack V Giant showcases messages about fairness, being paid for your work, and taking care of your family. The father in the story apologises for the way he treats his daughter when she brought back the beans. There were a lot of great messages within the play, and seeing such a strong female lead is always wonderful, especially for those who are younger.

Jack V Giant only had two actors within the show, however the use of the stage and puppets made it feel like such a bigger performance. There are moments when the back of the stage showcases cartoons, which is the only place we see Dotty the cow! And our main character makes her way onto the screen, becoming a cartoon for a short amount of time. This back stage also drops away, showing more of the stage behind it, which works well to showcase the mines and the top of the beanstalk. There were also lights hidden everywhere, and little bits of wood could transform the area to seem like a house or seem like the mines.

There are puppets of both The Big Man and also of Jack, who are used to climb the beanstalk! The puppet of Jack is also how the actors show that The Big Man is very large in his castle – where as Jack is just a tiny puppet. More plays should really showcase puppets, as they are just so much fun! Though this play is listed as for 4 year olds to 8 year olds, all of ours really enjoyed the performance and found the modern nods and twists to be really funny and well written.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!