The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child Screening with the National Symphony Orchestra

Terry Davies conducts René Aubry’s inspired score for the much-loved children’s classics The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child, based on the books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. This live music, played by the National Symphony Orchestra will accompany screenings of these two films. 

The Gruffalo
Walk further into the deep dark wood and discover what happens when a quick-witted mouse comes face to face with an owl, a snake . . . and a hungry Gruffalo!

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's The Gruffalo is an undisputed modern classic and has become a best-selling phenomenon across the world with over 13.5 million copies sold. This award-winning rhyming story of a mouse and a monster has found its way into the hearts and bedtimes of an entire generation of children and will undoubtedly continue to enchant children for years and years to come. 

The Gruffalo's Child
The story is about the Gruffalo's daughter who, despite her father's warning, sets off into the deep dark wood to find the "big bad mouse", the only thing her father is afraid of. The Gruffalo can not remember what he looks like and describes him as a monster.

During her winter journey, she encounters the tracks of the snake, the owl, and the fox from the previous story, each of whom she first suspects to be the "big bad mouse", but who in turn tell her where she can find the real "big bad mouse". Eventually, concluding she has been tricked by the animals (and perhaps her father), she sadly decides that she "doesn't believe in the 'big bad mouse".

At this point, she encounters the little mouse from The Gruffalo, who previously tricked her father and who her father and the animals were talking about. When she threatens to eat him, he cunningly invites her to meet the "big bad mouse", which he re-creates by using moonlight to project a tremendously enlarged and fearsome shadow to scare her away. Believing the shadow to belong to the real "big bad mouse", the Gruffalo's child flees and returns to the Gruffalo cave with faith in her father restored.

Magic Light Pictures presents The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child © Orange Eyes Ltd 2009 & 2011

Presented by NCH