EdFringe Review: Quentin Blake’s Mrs Armitage on Wheels

Adapting Quentin Blake’s scratchy ink drawings for the stage requires some lively improvisation. In director Samantha Lane’s stage treatment of Mrs Armitage On Wheels, the eccentric tinkerer takes to the road with her dog, Breakspear, intent on cycling to her cousin Angela’s house for afternoon tea and cake.

The result is a musical delight, with cake at the end!

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What should be a simple cross-country ride transforms into an escalating series of roadside modifications. Equipping her modest bicycle with customised horns, umbrella mounts, and elaborate snack trays, Mrs Armitage reveals a penchant for flagrantly overengineered gadgets. She will attempt to solve any issue, no matter how specific—from a letter-poster for a local Scot to a dahlia hydrator for a needy gardener. Each challenge offers a cheerful succession of exuberantly choreographed problem-solving antics that charm young audience members, even if it stalls the forward drive of her trip.

A mechanical cabaret of domestic inventions

Jessie Maryon Davies’ rather excellent score opens with the catchy title track, ‘Mrs Armitage! a well-orchestrated anthem that recurs throughout the show. More quality numbers will follow, whether underlining Mrs Armitage’s joy in her home, ‘In My Shed’, or when seeking just the right horn to scare hedgehogs, without giving them an aneurysm.

Doing justice to that score, Lottie Johnson anchors the production in the title role, bringing what my grandma would have called ‘jolly hockeysticks’ energy that feels entirely right for the part. Her voice possesses a lovely tone and the versatility to lead this musical style with authority. She and her co-stars really do punch above their weight when conspiring to deliver a group number, but she is the exceptional anchor.

Beside her, Duncan Taylor operates Maia Kirkman-Richards’ charming canine puppet, Breakspear, with meticulous agility. He turns a bundle of fluff and felt into a comic scene-stealer whose squeaks and howls draw easy peels of laughter from the auditorium. Christopher Dobson rounds out the cast with nimble energy, shifting through a gallery of oddball local passersby—from nervous hedgehogs to Harry Potter-esque talking letters—while helping to transform everyday items like dustpans, buckets, and scrubbing brushes into charming secondary puppets.

At the centre of the staging, Ryan Dawson Laight’s set design captures the Blake aesthetic rather well. Dominated by a massive wooden workshop shed that folds and unlocks with the intricate precision of a cabinetmaker’s puzzle box, it is an impressive piece of physical craft. Yet keeping Mrs Armitage anchored in and around her cottage creates a narrative block. Her avowed ingenuity looks a little impotent when she solves all sorts of problems, apart from how to make a simple trip to visit her cousin.

Nevertheless, the production’s communal message wins through. When Mrs Armitage ends up in full plaster casts for the finale, it ushers in cheeky, silly comedy alongside a heartfelt karmic message – you do you good to others, and it comes back. So, Lane’s adaptation trades away some of Blake’s solitary resilience in favour of broad ensemble camaraderie, but as an introduction to live theatre, this freewheeling excursion is an affectionate tribute to the joy of making, breaking, and mending.

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