If you have children then you have probably seen and heard of Peppa Peg. The show has around four million billions viewers. I have always been intrigued by how this UK show has taken the US by storm. I wanted to take a closer look at the show and the new live show. I wanted to write this series of articles to give parents some insight into the mind of Peppa Pig fans.

Peppa Pig is currently on a live tour, Peppa Pig’s Big Splash,  and I was eager to check out what the show would be like on a stage and how the audience would react to seeing Peppa Pig front and center.

Before heading to the show, I wanted to get some behind the scenes information about the operation of this large scale production. I got to direct a few questions to Jonathan Shank, Red Light Management, and a producer of Peppa Pig’s Big Splash.

Shank explained that the tour team travels in two buses and one semi-truck. They travel through the night to the next city and when everyone wakes up, they are in a new city.

The traveling team is comprised of about 20 people and there are a dozen or so other team members that work on the creative, marketing and planning aspects of the show from their respective offices.

The tour just finished up a 108 show run that included three sold out shows at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. It will pick up again in this fall and then be back out in 2017. The tour will play a total of about 150 shows in 2016. The tour will then come back around in 2017.

Now that I was armed with this information, I was excited to go and see the show.

The Beacon Theatre is set in a circular format, so there is really not a bad seat in the house; the old Theatre has a classic look and was really a great backdrop for this show.

The characters of Peppa Pig, her little brother George, and their friends appear on stage as puppets operated by actors dressed in black. Daddy Pig and Mummy Pig appear as costume characters.

You would think that Peppa would be the star of the show, but it is actually a non-puppet character named Daisy, which was a surprise to me. She is the one who encourages everyone in the audience to participate and get involved in the action, which we do many times. We helped the characters locate Peppa during a game of hide and seek and, when George lost his beloved Mr. Dinosaur toy, we shouted and pointed to help him find it.

The interaction is key to this theatre production aimed at children because it helps to hold their attention and keep them fully entertained throughout the show.

While we were singing and dancing and up on our feet a lot, the characters were in the middle of a crisis. The nursery school roof has a big leak. To raise money to repair the roof, Peppa, Daisy and their pals organize a fair. The highlight of the event is the champion puddle jumping competition. Peppa’s dad, who holds the record as the town’s best puddle jumper, will have to defend his title. The anticipation builds up as the competition nears and the whole audience probably thought that Daddy Pig would be the clear cut winner. We are all in for a surprise when he loses for not practicing enough – though it’s a good lesson for young show goers. Spoiler Alert: Don’t despair, Peppa and her friends manage to save the day and retain the title too!

Peppa Pig’s Big Splash was fun packed, lively and with lots of humor, just like the TV show. It is definitely worth checking out if you can catch it in a city or town near you.

Stay tuned for the next part of this series when we take a closer look at the Peppa Pig TV show and the person who lends the character her distinctive and endearing voice.