(clockwise) Daniel Mack Shand, Louie Westwood and Victoria Barker in Smelly Feet at the Questors Theatre, London and Touring
Smelly Feet was performed at the Questors Theatre, London, before continuing its UK tour until 2 August.
Review written by Scarlett Maxwell, aged seven (eight on Sunday), as told to critic/Grandpa Jeremy Chapman.
If Smelly Feet had been pants, then I could have said it stank. I was quite looking forward to that! However, the word that most comes to mind is ‘awesome’.
This 50-minute show, for children aged between three and eight, had some brilliant songs, written by an American called Dean Friedman, who I’m told was a bit of a pop star a long time ago but now writes songs and shows for young people.
He can certainly write cute tunes, and my little brother Oli and I came away singing the title song ‘Smelly Feet’ which was funny. But there was also a nice one called ‘Please, Please, Don’t Tease the Bees’ and the show opened with ‘The Silly, Silly, Silly Song’.
So I think you’ll get the idea that it’s not very serious, although there were some more thoughtful ones as well, a love song to a snail and Sally, Danny’s kid sister who’s fed-up being ignored, sticks up for herself with ‘I’m Somebody Too’.
Incidentally, Danny and Sally were VERY tall for five and seven! Mr Friedman must think we’re all very clever in England because he uses a word I’ve never heard before. It’s HYPOTHESIS (I had to get Grandpa to spell it for me).
Anyway, we were asked to join in the song ‘Bubble Bath’ because the lucky ones in the audience at the preview show in Ealing got some bubbles to blow. That was great.
There was a cast of three and the one I haven’t mentioned is Pete, the friend of Danny who had a mop of blond, frizzy hair. He was the one with smelly feet! That was because he changed his socks only once a month. Absolutely disgusting!
They made the actress who played little Sally work very hard. She put on high heels to play The Mother, Mrs Winklemeyer, and also made her do a foreign accent as a dentist. I hope she got paid a lot more than the boys who had it easy. More power to us girls!
Grandpa Jeremy Chapman writes: Victoria Barker played the three female roles, Daniel Mack Shand was Danny and Louie Westwood was Pete. Dominique Gerrard directed with Jane Marlow as musical director.
Dean Friedman reached No. 3 in the UK charts with ‘Lucky Stars’ in 1978 (in duet with Denise Marsa) and spent five months in the US charts with ‘Ariel’ the previous year. He later had ‘McDonald’s Girl’ banned by the BBC because it mentioned the fast-food chain in the title.
Smelly Feet hits the West End this weekend with two performances at the Leicester Square Theatre (11–12 April) and plays various venues in Essex, Sussex, Devon, Kent, Suffolk, Bedfordshire and Dorset during the Easter and summer school holidays and at weekends until 2 August.
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