CBeebies Peter Pan Media City Event

 On Saturday the 11th, after a brief jab in the arm for my flu vaccine, I took advantage of the couple of days that the British weather decided to stop being so rainy and miserable and decided to head down to Salford Quays for The CBeebies Peter Pan Event.
The CBeebies Christmas panto of Peter Pan was being held in the Lowry over the weekend, with rehearsals on the Friday and the show on the Saturday and a stage and free activities for young children were put on outside.

If I had known in advance about tickets and where the shows were held I would have entered to try and get them. However the outside activities sounded good fun and sites online advertised that Mr Maker, Sid Sloane and others would be on the stage and there would be a seated area to view the panto on the big screen!

We took the train to Picadilly and the tram like last time we visited the Lowry so it was pretty straight forward but a massive squash when on the tram as possibly every family with young children in Manchester had decided to come along to the event.




It was super busy and I realised just a bit too late that it would have been a better idea to go on the Friday. It wasn't overly a problem and I consoled myself with the fact the panto wasn't shown on the Friday so we would have missed out. However it turned out that they had changed their minds about the seat's, I presume as it was so busy, so there was nowhere to rest your legs or 'get comfy' as Dr Ranj suggested to view the panto. After having G on my shoulders for one of the previous stage performances I really needed a break so we couldn't stay to watch the show as obviously with everyone standing up she couldn't see unless I held her.
It also seemed really difficult to actually see much on the screen once the panto came on, possibly because of the lighting, so in general that was a bit of a let down. The other entertainment on stage was great however!

We got there for 12 and sadly missed Mr Maker as I think G would have enjoyed seeing him. We also didn't see Sid which mummy may have been looking forward too....
I think they either must have been on the Friday or earlier in the morning, I'm sure they would have been great for those that were there!
We did see the Rasta mouse and 'the easy crew' set twice with Dr Ranj busting some serious moves. G enjoyed this and despite being full of a nasty virus she was kept going by the excitement of it all. I moved to the front with her on my shoulders, possibly a little excited myself to see Dr Ranj.....you can tell the only TV I've really been able to watch the past couple of years is CBeebies!
There was also a Furchester hotel set due on stage at 5pm but that was too late for us, especially with G being ill, we needed to get home. I'd also been forwarned on the busy tram there about the rugby ending around 6 so wanted to be out of Manchester by then!

Before we wormed our way nearer the front, Rastamouse and Dr Ranj

The pirates from Swashbuckle also made an appearance but at the time we had finally made it onto the CBeebies pirate ship. There were set times when you could queue for a quick look on board the Liverpool ship the Glaciere/Cbeebies jolly roger. Apparently there were story telling sessions in the cabin, I don't know when these happened but we missed them too! It was quite a long wait in the queue and G announced just before we were able to go on that she needed a wee! Luckily she managed to hold on. We had a quick look round but G really wanted to stay on longer....such a long wait then a quick rush round. It was still great that we were able to go on.

Just before then we had queued for a while to go into the Tree fu Tom tent where there were activities such as making a bug hotel, apple printing, 'guess the veg', decorate a leaf, make a cress pot, looking for pond life. G took part in all of these and enjoyed herself. We would have stayed for longer but I had to rush her out just as she was enjoying herself cutting out a leaf to queue to get on the boat so that she didn't miss that!

There was also apparently an area where they were doing 'sea themed singing and story telling with musical instruments' I'm sad we didn't spot this anywhere whilst we were there.
We did go into a tent with Maths activities where G enjoyed digging around in buckets of sand and counting or mainly just discovering objects in them. She also had a play in the Science tent with the tubs of water with objects that either floated or sank. We also queued to play hook a duck, again which was very brief due to the day being so busy and G was given a bag of duck feed which we will be using on our next park visit. I am always meaning to go and get them some proper food from home bargains but it always ends up being old bread, which apparently stunts their growth! So it was nice to get this.
There was also a treasure hunt to take part in. I did see some people with maps but as I wasn't sure where to get them and there was other activities going on we didn't take part in that.

After looking online after I was gutted to see we has missed some Peter Pan themed under fives special dance and movement sessions in the Lowry on the Friday. They sounded wonderful.

I really should have done more research before the event instead of just going off a vague media release and this post wouldn't have been mostly about all the things we missed!
 However it was great considering it was free and although I don't think G has ever seen Rasta mouse she enjoyed the songs, seeing the characters and seeing Dr Ranj.
It was also great that they had set up area's to park your buggy and leave it. It definitely made things easier.



Did you go to the event? What did you think and what did you and your children get up to?

The Lowry - Here's one we made earlier

'Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.'

When I found out about The Lowry's 'Here's one we made earlier' exhibition I was quite excited. I love a bit of nostalgia and I am now one of those 'old sounding' people who says 'tv was so much better in my day.....'

I have many favourites from when I was little, the times when we had a working tv and before my brother decided he was the only one who was allowed to use it. Ed the duck from the broom cupboard was a love of mine and as a 5 year old I remember getting an Ed the Duck hand puppet on my birthday and the tremendous excitement of seeing it in the snack tray (as if the cartons of ribena and pack of raisins weren't exciting enough) at school as I'd been allowed to take it in to show everyone.

I was hoping to see an appearance from Ed and thought G would love to have a cuddle with a teletubbies figure and see the veggies from Mr Bloom. So Monday the 8th of this month G and I took a trip to The Lowry.

At first I was apprehensive about getting us to Salford Quays via public transport but it turned out to be pretty straight forward. The train station is a twenty minute walk from my house - that's if G is convinced to sit in the buggy, otherwise it's more like an hour! We jumped on a train to Picadilly then jumped off and straight onto the Metrolink. Then depending on which service you get on you can depart at:

•  Harbour city and cross the Detroit bridge or 
• Media City right by the Lowry or
• Salford Quays where I think you can use the impressive looking Millennium bridge/lift bridge to cross over to Media city.

It was G's first time on a tram so that was exciting for her. We were on the Eccles service so got off at Harbour city. We crossed the Detroit bridge ... on which I got some great photo's until I managed to accidentally delete them later that day whilst hastily making space on the camera for more picture's.

So here's the one that was left.....

This was G's first visit to the Lowry and my second after seeing Derren Brown with family and G's father. It ended up a very unhappy night because of him so I was glad to replace that memory with a happy one with G.

The exhibition which celebrates 90 years of children's broadcasting on the BBC opened to the public on July the 19th and stays open until October 12th for anyone who after reading wants to plan a visit.
It was interesting as an adult to see how programmes changed as the years went on and the displays were bright and engaging for the children.














G loves these annoying cretins so was excited to see them but her excitement was dampened a fair bit when she wasn't allowed to touch or cuddle them. I suppose they wouldn't last so long if every child that went in got their hands on them but then for a Teletubby loving 3 year old it was a case of 'so near but yet so far'.

The veggies from Mr bloom...not as exciting when not animated but still maintained her interest for a bit. She was pleased to see them, not that you can tell from this photo....

I was quite excited to see Whybird and Peggy Patch from Play days ....

This was lovely....the CBeebies reading area. There were chairs by the side as well so we took a couple of books and sat and had a read. Grace also gave the teddies a cuddle.

I took this photo mainly for my mum although I do indeed know who the flower pot men are. This was near the CBeebies reading area along with an old fashioned TV which G found interesting.

Also in the first section you can see TV screens, one showing Justin 'king of CBeebies' Fletcher another larger one showing Playschool with ear phones so you can listen along.
They also had headphones playing excerpts from Muffin the Mule and Listen with Mother.

How young does Phillip Schofield look?!

I particularly enjoyed the time-line and being large and colourful with flaps to lift it was good to engage the children.



This sadly was the only place I spotted Ed the duck, I was not happy about this to say the least.

Feeling mummy's pain about Ed? Or just fed up of the photo's?

I did get quite excited about these two screens (I did come here for G, not just for myself honest).  The adaptations I loved of Five children and It and Narnia. It was nice to share these with G. I loved that Psammead and I'll definately be getting the book triology for G to read when she's a bit older.

This --------->

made me feel very old. I remember watching the show the day it was broadcast and being awestruck with Anthea Turners papier mache and yoghurt pot construction of Tracy Island. 

G had enjoyed going through the second section of tv and headphones (ft Narnia, the Sammead and an old Grange hill episode of one characters Heroin abuse which I had to keep moving her away from) but it was then really nice to find a little dressing up box with some hats in so she could have a play.

G a bit uneasy about metal Mabel

Looking at the above photo I feel a bit bad about getting Grace to pose with the sculpture made of Blue Peter dog Mabel. Bonnie and Mabel were the dogs on the show when I used to watch. The real Mabel was a lot friendlier looking.

The Puppet Section!

...............featuring no Ed the duck.................

I loved The Sooty show with Matthew Corbet. Grace had never seen Sooty but she loves puppets.

These were both before my time. I remember getting a clangers pencil case when I was younger as I did love them despite never having seen the show.









There was a little seated area behind the puppets with clips of shows being projected onto the wall which G had a little watch of.

There were a couple of other areas to look at but G was too young to get much out of them and was getting a bit fidgety so we went to the last area which was interactive.

Here she is having a go on a Playstation wonderbook game, which, with me being so behind with the times, I had never seen before. It took me a while to figure out how to work it.....

After we'd looked round the exhibition we had a quick visit to the room opposite the galleries where children could play or do some colouring. By this point G was hungry so we left but it would have been good to stay otherwise.










It was a good day out until G had a melt down when leaving because the restaurant wasn't open yet. The Lowry wasn't one of the most desirable places for her to have one of screaming fits that she's developed since turning 3. That aside I'm glad we went  and I think G had a good time. Once she'd had some food her inner monster resided and we caught the Metrolink from Media City back to Picadilly.


The weather was nice and I thought it would be good for G to blow off some steam so I let her have some time in the play area before we headed home.

Have you visited the exhibition or Manchester recently? Let me know.

This post has been featured in the weekend blog spot over at Claire Justine's Blog. Head on over and take part too.