Review: Last Unicorn Airways, Grimm & co

Grimm & co is a charity aimed at encouraging children to read and be creative. The charity’s home, the magical Emporium of Stories, is in a converted church in Rotherham, but wouldn’t be out of place on Diagon Alley.

Grimm & co’s Festival of Stories offers a programme of surprises, creative activities and family events until 31 May. Last Unicorn Airways is one of those events, created by The Blanket Fort Club.

Writer, George Stone, says that through lived experience, she understands how challenging it can be to find a theatre experience that offers something rich, meaningful and joyful for everyone in a family – especially when access needs vary. Last Unicorn Airways is designed to bring people together through shared wonder. It blends sensory storytelling, puppetry, live music and immersive design to invite families into a world they can explore together in their own way.

As the children enter the performance space, they are each given a tactile bundle of objects related to the journey they are about to take through their imagination. The children are all eager to explore these and find such items as world landmarks, snowglobes and animals as they sit on their beanbags.

The set is simply a colourful wooden archway and many pieces of luggage. The two engaging performers, Will Batty and Elizabeth Robin, are uniformed luggage handlers, LH1 and LH2, who accompany the children on an imaginary flight. They firstly arrive in a rainy London and the performers open a suitcase to find umbrellas which become ravens. In Scotland, blue fabric from another case becomes Loch Ness. Some children reach out to touch the monster. In Paris, the performers find luggage contents to create a cafe and check in with the children that they have Parisien landmarks in their bundles. In Egypt, they create a large fabric pyramid and there is laughter from the children as LH1 becomes a mummy. In a rainforest, makeshift bird hand puppets squawk amongst the audience.

But the children really do become fully engaged when the journey reaches an African safari. They find model animals in their bundles and need very little encouragement to shout out names of animals and make animal noises. The performers cleverly create lions, monkeys, crocodiles and elephants from more luggage content. The children are now completely enthralled.

The audience engagement increases even further when the journey involves climbing up luggage representing Mount Everest and there is a snowball fight. The children are all very excited to take part. It’s delightful to see their joy.

Then follows a puppet show of Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, The Flying Trunk. More luggage contains attractive illuminated sets for the puppets as the performers tell the tale, then produce a guitar and sing You Belong To Me (See the Pyramids Across the Nile).

The hard-working performers finally reveal that the archway pulls out to create a large tunnel, and invite the children to enter it and explore further. The performers interact with the children by asking questions and encouraging responses. Most children need no encouragement, but the performers do their best to ensure no child is left behind and eventually even the initially hesitant ones enter the tunnel to find fairy lights, bunting and a unicorn.

The tunnel is a quite magical conclusion to a fully immersive, fast paced entertainment, stimulating young children to explore their own imaginations and discover their own creativity.

Created by The Blanket Fort Club
Written by: George Stone
Produced by: Miranda Debenham
Designed by: Kevin Jenkins
Sound designed by: Sam Glossop

You can find out more about Grimm & co on their website here.

Last Unicorn Airways tours nationally, with dates confirmed through to May 2026.