A TOURING production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, arrives at the Princess Theatre on April Fool’s Day, and Tindle News’ Neil Edwards spoke with producer Chris Harper to find out what it takes to bring a beloved fantasy novel to life on stage.

It’s a much-loved book, and been adapted for both television and the big screen, but now the Narnian tale of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is heading to the stage - no mean feat considering the complexities of stepping through the wardrobe into a magic kingdom .

‘As producer, in most cases you have the idea for the show, commission the writer, employ everyone to make it happen, book the theatres and control marketing of the show,’ said Chris.

‘In this show’s case, I had always loved the idea of bringing the show to the West End, as it was a title and a book that I loved as a kid, having for a long time, been a producer at the National Theatre for a play called Warhorse, by Michael Morpurgo.

‘I loved what Warhorse did. It introduced young adults to theatre, was really theatrical, bold, and spoke to cross-generational audiences.’

The founding managing director and producer of National Theatre Productions in 2009, in 2016 Chris founded Elliott and Harper Productions.

After setting up my own theatre company I was thinking what might work theatrically, and as a producer what is exciting is its all about imagination. ‘ he continued.

‘The idea a bunch of kids go through a wardrobe into a magical world, and with children myself - I know how thrilling it is for them to make magical play up.

I can certainly see why CS Lewis decided to write a fantasy novel about that kind of adventure for kids and I just thought it would be thrilling to tell that story on stage.’

And of course with the mighty lion Aslan central to the tale animated puppets are very much a key part of bringing the whole story to life.

‘We have got incredible puppetry, the Lion especially, a good versus evil story with a white witch, fawns, and other amazing animals but underpinning it is this story of these kids going on an adventure and it just happens that this year is the 75th anniversary of the release of the book, so timing the tour felt a smart thing to do.

‘We also have a guy called Toby Olivier, who has made the puppets for the show, and was one of the original cast members in Warhorse, actually playing part of the horse itself, and he’s done amazing things with puppetry all over the world, so when we came to do this production it was clear to me that Toby was the person to do it, so we were very fortunate that he agreed to come on board.

‘I like to follow the tour as I know a lot of these venues and am very present in the show’s life. I want to be there to make sure the show is great and is giving the audience exactly what they want. It’s the first time it has come to Torquay and we are absolutely thrilled to be able to fit the show in with no issues.

‘It’s a very big show, with a cast of 23 who are actor/musicians, they’ve got magic, illusions and flying - there’s so much going on in the show you have to make sure that everyone is being taken care of properly and runs like clockwork!’

You can catch this magical show at Torquay’s Princess Theatre where it will run from Tuesday, April 1 to Saturday, April 5.