Image: Penny PlainSunday with the boy and we're going to try and get rush tickets to see Ronnie Burkett's "Penny Plain" - a new production, commissioned by the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton.

Now I'm a pretty big fan of Ronnie Burkett, and I've seen most of his productions going back 25 odd years.

He's a genius.

But this time I'd kind of reconciled myself to the thought that I'd have to miss it - schedule, finance didn't particularly fit. 

Until I found out about the Sunday Matinees.

Which fit perfectly, and so I'm at the theatre hoping against hope to get rush tickets.

It's this or we'll end up at Weibo's War at the Plaza.

And we get them.

Now the play, it's everything I've come to expect from Ronnie Burkett, Brilliant, entirely off the wall (and it seems he's getting more and more off the wall as he gets older), a dazzling array of puppets and great work doing the voices. This noted, his vocal range is going, and many of the puppets are starting to sound an awful lot alike....

As quirky and offbeat as it is it's par for the course, and there is the feeling that I should be challenging myself with slightly more - ?? - how to put it? More surprising theatre. It's a little like seeing 12 Angry Men, or Shakespeare, you know exactly what you're getting.

But I look at the boy, catch his reaction, and it is gold. He is impressed, he's never seen anything like this, and for me it's become a bit routine, for him it's all fresh and new, and that's why we go to the theatre. If you've only seen a couple of his, go and see it. If you've seen a dozen or so by him, take a friend and try and see it through their eyes.

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