Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?

“Sesame Street started in 1969. The year that Man landed on the moon” producer Nick George tells me. “It’s incredible and just shows the appeal of the brand, its longevity.”

Sesame Street Live – Elmo Makes Music is taking over the Meadows Theatre Big Top for its first ever Edinburgh visit. And it promises to deliver everything you’d expect from the Sesame Street brand, a high-energy musical show with larger than life monsters making music. Elmo, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Bert and Ernie; they are all there.  

This is a big show, in every sense. “We’re thrilled about bringing it to Edinburgh. This is us finally coming home to Great Britain after a tour that started last summer” says Nick. “We’ve been to some quite unusual places, perhaps ones that you wouldn’t expect to take a children’s show to; Kuwait City, Quatar, Cairo. It’s a global phenomenon. In a culture where everything tends to be very quick and immediate, Sesame Street continues to be such a success.”

Just what is it about Sesame Street that still appeals to us after all these years? For most of us it’s such a recognisable and familiar brand. Jim Henson’s work has played a part in most of our childhoods whether it’s through Sesame Street, The Muppets or even Fraggle Rock: we know what to expect, so for those of us that are now parents ourselves we feel safe with Sesame Street.

There’s no doubt in Nick’s mind that there will be many nostalgic parents dragging their kids along to see the show. “We’ve found that these tickets aren’t sold on what I call the child’s ‘pester power’ where the kids are saying ‘Please can we go and see this show.’ With this it almost works the other way. It’s the parents saying ‘Great, we’ve got to go and see this show!’ Kids may know Elmo but the parents get so excited too when they see the other characters, and that’s really exciting for us.”

I wonder whether there’s a chance that the very young audiences might have never seen Sesame Street, what with the massive volume of kid’s TV shows and channels there are now. “Certainly there will be some who may never have seen Sesame Street before or know any of the characters.” Indeed Nick’s own son was two when he first saw the show and didn’t know any of the characters but “lit up with all of brightness and colour and the sound. They might not know the characters but they’re going to associate with it.”

So apart from making music with an eight-foot yellow bird with stripey legs, what does Nick hope that the kids get from the show? “Our live shows’ main aim is to entertain, for you to come along and have some fun. The show’s not like the television show which has a strong educational element and is heavily based on numbers and letters. That said, one of the thoughts of the Sesame Workshop—who we’ve worked with on this show—is that if you can hold the attention of a young child then you can help to educate them. That might be them leaving having learnt about a new musical instrument, or they’ve bonded with their friends or made music with their parents.”

“I’m aware that for a lot of these children it will be their first ever experience of theatre. If they like it then they’re going to want to come back, and keep coming back. We almost have a responsibility to make these kids enjoy the show so that they’ll want to keep coming back and see other shows."