Our story takes place in a garden where Tony the gardener grow plants and vegetables to sell.  His helpers are the creatures and insects who live there.  We meet them, and the sun and the moon.  Tony needs everyone to work together to make the garden grow, but when things begin to go wrong and danger strikes, who will  be brave enough to help Tony solve the mystery?

The play was written for children to perform, but it works well with adults performing for children, or a combination of adults and children acting together as in The Sheringham Little Theatre production.  Students from Year 7 at Sheringham High School  performed the play for 90 children from three local primary schools during a day long Wally Workshop.

There are bees, butterflies, beetles, ladybirds, slugs, Wally the Worm and Tony the gardener. Night and day are symbolised by the appearance of the sun and the moon.  There are also flowers including sunflowers, with scope for speaking and non speaking parts.

There is one colourful set with no scene changes - just night and day.

The play lasts approximately 20-25 minutes.  There are 12 short songs where Tony the gardener and the creatures introduce themselves and explain the jobs they each do.

Comments from The Sheringham Little Theatre :-

The Little Theatre produced 'Wally the Worm' with our outreach drama groups, in June 2004.  The groups ages ranged from 4 to 8 years old and they thoroughly enjoyed being in the production.
As a musical story, 'Wally the Worm' provides excellent opportunities to engage children on several levels.  The younger ones benefited tremendously from being able to identify each insect and their characteristics through the songs.  The older participants developed their story telling skills recognizing that the story had a clear beginning, middle and end.
As a performance piece it creates numerous options and plenty of scope for staging and working within varying spaces and budgets!
I thoroughly recommend  this piece to everyone and anyone who works with children.

Debbie Thompson, Artistic Director, Sheringham Little Theatre, Norfolk.


Comments from Beeston Primary School  Norfolk:-

We had lots of fun performing 'Wally the Worm'.  The play was very teacher friendly - with plenty of parts for a class of 30 children.  All the children from Reception to Year 2 could get involved.  They quickly learnt the songs with their catchy tunes and loved dressing up as bees and butterflies and slugs! 
The children still burst into song when they see a minibeast!  It really complimented my topic on minnibeasts.  GREAT FUN!

Sue Piffero KS1 Class Teacher Beeston Primary School  Norfolk

Here is a selection of photos taken from the Sheringham Little Theatre production.

Some of the scenery created and used in the play