Der Grüffelo

A modern fairy tale

You can never be too young or too old for The Gruffalo. This applies to the wonderful picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler as well as to the stage version of the story. The Gruffalo has thrilled well over a million visitors in this production in England and around the world. The Junges Theater Bonn produced the German-language premiere of the musical for children aged 3 and up and has been staging the play with enormous success since 2010.

Small versus big

A little mouse lives in a large forest. There are several animals there that would love to eat the mouse: namely the owl, the fox and the snake. But the mouse is clever and knows how to help itself. It simply invents the Gruffalo – a monster with fiery eyes, terrible claws, a hideous paw and a poisonous wart on its face. When the mouse tells the other animals about the dangerous Gruffalo, they get scared and run away from her. How lucky that the monster doesn’t really exist, because the mouse only made him up… But suddenly she is actually standing in front of a monster that looks like the Gruffalo. And now the mouse has a problem, because its favourite dish is ‘butter bread with a little mouse’. But the resourceful mouse is not intimidated and even teaches the big, strong Gruffalo to be afraid…

Award-winning and popular

The play is a modern fairy tale in which the courage of the little ones triumphs over their fear of the big ones. Published in 1999, The Gruffalo became one of the most successful children’s books in Great Britain and is already considered a modern classic. The imaginative rhymes and ideas of author Julia Donaldson and the lovely illustrations by Axel Scheffler have earned The Gruffalo several awards. Among other honours, the book was awarded the prestigious British Nestlé Children’s Book Prize, has been translated into more than 30 languages and has sold over 10 million copies.