HE has been on our screens for over 20 years but now everyone's favourite tank engine is rolling into the Playhouse for the stage show, Thomas and Friends Live!
The brand new musical, presented by ThemeSTAR and HIT Entertainment, stars Thomas along with friends, Percy, Diesel, The Fat Controller and other residents and engineers from the magical island of Sodor.
The show includes new railway-themed songs
, as well as the original sing-along classics such as, Roll Call and Good Morning and follows Thomas and his friends as they work together.
Thomas first steamed onto our screens in 1984 after the huge success of children's books written by Rev W Awdrey. The books came about as Awdrey, as a young boy tucked up in bed, used to listen to the tank engines struggling up the hill outside his house in the village of Box in Wiltshire and imagined they were talking to each other. Years later, after being persuaded by his son, Christopher, Awdry began to write down the stories of the steam engines and Thomas the Tank Engine was born.
Since the books, Thomas and Friends has become a global phenomenon and is one of the most popular and successful pre-school properties in the world. T The Thomas and Friends Live! tour coincides well with the opening of Thomas Land in Drayton Mannor theme park in Staffordshire, where children can take a ride on Thomas himself.
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Thomas and Friends live on stage, Playhouse theatre, tonight-Sunday, 2pm, 5pm (today); 11am, 2pm and 5pm (Saturday); 11am, 2pm (Sunday), £16-£19.50, 0844 844 0009 The full article contains 273 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
