The Parent Agency Musical Review

On Saturday we were lucky enough to be invited to the opening of the new British family musical based on the book, The Parent Agency by David Baddiel at Storyhouse, Chester. Read on for my The Parent Agency Musical Review. Find more great Family days out North West England here.

Ad – We were gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. The photos are all the press images.

The Parent Agency production combines David Baddiel’s best-selling children’s book with original lyrics to some really catchy songs. The music is written by Dan Gillespie Sells (Everybody’s talking about Jamie). We loved all the music throughout the show and the team have done a great job of bringing the book to life with the show stopping musical numbers throughout the show. The show is directed by Tim Jackson (Two strangers carry a cake across New York).

Boy dressed in red sat on floor with his back to us and a man and two women singing

This is a fantastic family musical with lots of comedy for all the family as well as high energy tunes and a heartfelt message too. We haven’t read the book but this doesn’t matter at all but if you love the book, I’m sure you’ll love the show too. We’ve already picked up a different David Baddiel book to read together and I hope it will have us laughing just as much as this musical did.

The show open’s with us meeting 10 year old Barry and is narrated by David Baddiel himself as we find out exactly why Barry dislikes his parents! Firstly they called him Barry but there are other reasons too like the fact they’re strict and boring. In fact he has a list of reasons!

Boy dressed in red leaning backwards as 2 women dressed in blue point at him

The story continues in a really imaginative and fun way as Barry finds himself in an alternate universe, at The Parent Agency where he gets to choose his perfect parents. He tries out 4 different types of parents (rich, no rules etc) and discovers none of them are quite right.

There are some real stand out scenes that really made us laugh like the fitness fanatic parents who sing a catchy number whilst on mini-trampolines. It was one of the moments where all our family (in fact the whole audience) couldn’t stop laughing!

The story ends with some real heartfelt moments that all parent’s and children will really be able to connect with the moral of the story.

All the actors were fantastic playing multiple quirky characters throughout the show. A special mention has to be made for Barry who at such a young age, leads the show fabulously. He confidently delivered all his lines with some real cheekiness thrown in.

This show will make you laugh out loud, it might even make you shed a tear and you’ll definitely leave with a big smile on all your faces. It’s recommended for families with children 5 plus and I would agree with this age rating. My kids are 8 and 11 and they both loved the show.

The Parent Agency is on at Storyhouse Chester until 2nd March. There are plans for it to go on a UK tour after that so watch this space.

Book your tickets for Storyhouse Chester here – The Parent Agency | Storyhouse