Little Manfred

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Morpurgo added: “Storymakers and storytellers like Barrie, and like all the previous winners of this award, have given us the hope and faith children need, we need, to keep flying, have sustained us through dark and troubled times, have banished doubt. To touch the lives of children, to witness their listening and reading silence, is reward enough in itself. This is simply the icing on the cake.” The 1966 story is told with a combination of human and puppet actors, with the puppets portraying the children and the dog. As the story of events during the War unfolds, we see them depicted by much smaller, detailed and totally believable puppets, on a set which can be transformed from an upturned rowing boat to a sinking battleship. It is the puppetry that is without doubt the greatest strength of the production. The children with their dog convince utterly and engage with the audience quite naturally. As we get deeper into the story, the smaller WW2 puppets stay rightly distant and we quite properly see that story enacted from afar. Puppetry Director Marc Parrett has done a magnificent job.

Michael Morpurgo weaves a story through of friendship amidst trial, taking us on a journey through England (and Germany's) near history. Told in five parts he shows us the people who make us who we are. In the Imperial War Museum is a carved wooden Dachshund, made by a German prisoner of war. This is the incredible story of how it got there… As ever, Morpurgo's warmth and humanity suffuse a story of courage, love and hope. -- Amanda Craig, The Times Part 3: The War Ends - 1945. Repatriation takes a while. Walter and Manfred are moved and end up working as farm labour and to reclaim the beaches from mines and barbed wire. Part 2: The Past - 1941. The Bismark destroys HMS Hood (only three men survived), and in turn is destroyed resulting in the deaths of more than 2000 men. Walter and Manfred are taken to the UK as POWs.Soldiers Arts Academy provides opportunities for serving and ex-service personnel and their families to have access to the arts and training in performance skills. Their production Little Manfred opened at the Polka Theatre, where a full house enjoyed this touching tale from the book by Michael Morpurgo. The script is an adaptation by Damian Cruden and Amanda Faber, and Cruden also co-directs with Tom Bellerby. The result is a sensitive transformation to the stage which works well and benefits from an occasional metatheatrical touch, as when we are told there will be an interval during which we can think more about the story. It is at that point, too, that the cast come out and talk to the audience with the puppets, a much more effective timing than at the end though hard on the actors perhaps. Morpurgo’s book was based on a true story after illustrator Michael Foreman saw a toy wooden dog in the Imperial War Museum. He brought the story to Morpurgo’s attention, and the book was published in 2011. Once again, this author showed his ability to bring the horrors of war and the need for reconciliation to a young audience. The inventive design for the play by Dawn Allsop is not only totally clever and original but also seems to pay due deference to Foreman’s illustrations. In the Imperial War Museum is a wooden Dachshund, carved by a German prisoner of war for the children of the British family with which he stayed after the fighting ended. This is the story of how it got there...

A son and grandson of actors, Michael has acting in his blood and enjoys collaborating and performing live adaptations of his books at festivals, concerts and theatres. For more information about the work of Farms for City Children, please visit www.farmsforcitychildren.org David Wood, chair of Action for Children’s Arts, said Morpurgo is “one of our greatest storytellers”. Michael Morpurgo and Michael Foreman will be appearing at a Little Manfred event at the Imperial War Museum on 6 June at 7pm. The children find out that Little Manfred, the wooden dog, was made by Walter and Manfred. Manfred was like a dad to Grace as he used to read and tell stories to her. In the war Manfred died from a mine explosion and this is why the toy was named Little Manfred.

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I recommend this book to children 7+ along with other books by the author who writes really good books!! The letter and the toy were both a gift of reconciliation but also an appeal for food as conditions in Germany were harsh just after the war. We were both really touched by this wonderful object and the letter and wanted to explore this further. For readers aged eight and over, this captivating novel offers an insight into how Hitler came to power, refracted through the gaze of the young narrator.' Telegraph This pull-along Daschund toy dog was made for Christopher Duke and his brother from an old apple crate fixed together with pieces of scrap metal. It was one of several homemade toys made for the children of the Duke family by German prisoners of war who worked on Wested Farm near Swanley in Kent during the final years of the Second World War. The Duke children had very few toys so these homemade gifts were cherished by them. You can also read about his life in War Child to War Horse,a collaborative biography with Maggie Fergusson.

The only thing that made me think a bit was the age of the children and their mother. I know the war started in September 1939 because my Grandpa was born the day before it started. Grace could not have been more than eight in 1946 when the prisoners of war went home and they made her the little pull along dog, but in 1966, when most of the story takes place her daughter Charley is 12 years old. That means that Grace would only have been 16 when Charley was born. This did not stop me loving the book.Ms Faber, founder of Soldiers' Arts Academy, said: "We are delighted to be presenting Little Manfred in Name of Venue. To work with Sir Michael and Michael Foreman and this wonderful creative team is a real career high for everyone at Soldiers' Arts Academy. The only wrong note for me was the very short sequence with the wartime farmer and wife, where the humour revolved around the fact that they had funny Suffolk accents which the Germans couldn’t understand. Although the actor performing this sequence did it very well, it still seemed out of keeping with the rest of the production to play it for laughs, as did the decision to use two rather more caricatured puppets for these two characters. The script of the play suggests these characters should be more abstract, so perhaps shadow puppets would have been better? The postscript section at the end with two more actors and set 25 years later also seemed rushed, although the final image of the wooden dog was touching and appropriate.