'A miracle of balance, masterly in the ease and flexibility of its dramatic processes, wonderfully characterized, and touching in the emotional discoveries just below the surface.'
Tom Sutcliffe (The Guardian), 7 August 1985
‘The adventures of Jennie the Sealyham terrier who abandons the home where she has ‘everything ’ and ends up as Leading Lady of the Mother Goose World Theatre, performing alongside a Pig, a Cat and a splendidly sizeable Lion, are traced with parodic wit and the use of mock suspense and neat surprise … The piece is even more accessible to young audiences than its predecessor, with no fewer intimations to adults.’
The Sunday Times (Paul Driver)Tom Sutcliffe (The Guardian), 7 August 1985
‘The adventures of Jennie the Sealyham terrier who abandons the home where she has ‘everything ’ and ends up as Leading Lady of the Mother Goose World Theatre, performing alongside a Pig, a Cat and a splendidly sizeable Lion, are traced with parodic wit and the use of mock suspense and neat surprise … The piece is even more accessible to young audiences than its predecessor, with no fewer intimations to adults.’
‘The piece is full of clever and beautiful things; the early scenes proceed lamost in convulsions of orchestral brilliance within a marvelously clear and animated world whose chief references, sometimes explicit, are to Ravel and Stravinsky. The scene with the pig is deliciously rich in bass gruntings; that with the milkman cat mixes Marx brothers dialogue with a sophisticated recreation of low musical gags.’
The Times (Paul Griffiths)‘Knussen and Sendak engage in a good deal of intellectual wisecracking which proved to be genuinely amusing. Both the plot (with its subtle exploration of the nature of experience) and the music (with its quotations, pastiches and burlesques) wore their cleverness with pride.’
The Musical Times (Anthony Marks)