Yesterday evening I went to see Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre, with my wife and aunt. It was an excellent production. Something that leaves you thinking about it for days afterwards.

The cast were excellent of course. We had Katie Singh for Sylvia, the understudy for Pearl Mackie. In the play there’s a scene where Pauline Fossil gets into a fight and loses the lead for a play to become the understudy. It’s a learning moment in her life that that being in the theatre is part of being in a team and understudies are just as important.

This play in particular seemed to have more understudies than usual. But what seems to me to be a more expected number. Sometimes I have been to see shows with only an understudy for the lead - how can this work?! The rest of the cast can just never get ill?

I also liked Justin Salinger’s role. Initially as GUM, but then he keeps popping up: Madame Fidolia, Mr French, Julia Manoff… I love plays where one actor plays multiple parts. The 39 Steps and Come From Away are great examples of this.

The other thing which was nice to see was how many children there were in the audience. I guess this is not surprising for a play based on a children’s book, but it’s really nice to see. It makes me reminisce about about my own childhood of going to the theatre with my mother.

When I was a child, I was fortunate to be taken to the National Theatre quite often. We would see all manner of shows - modern, musicals, Shakespeare, fringe. Often we would walk down just to get returned tickets and see whatever we could on the night. Or would book shows of the books I was reading in school. So I like to see that that’s still happening for other people, to inspire an interest in the theatre.

Now I think about it, it’s interesting that theatre adaptations of books are almost always children’s books. And it’s a skill to make these stories interesting to adults. I’m unlikely to go to the cinema to watch a children’s film, but I wouldn’t hesitate at booking a show at the National, without even considering who the intended audience were.

I guess that’s just the magic of the theatre.