This Is Not My Hat

Little Angel released the first of Jon Klassen's wonderful Hat trilogy, I Want My Hat Back, in April, recreating the author's own design faithfully in a lockdown-made cardboard theatre that looks great on screen.

The availability of that first story has now been extended until the end of June and it has been joined by the other two stories from the trilogy told in the same style by director-performer Ian Nicholson.

In this story, once again someone has a hat that doesn't belong to them, but this time it is a small fish, who believes that the big fish won't notice his hat is gone, won't know who has taken it and won't know where he has gone anyway. Of course he is very wrong—possibly fatally so, it is implied—but the way that is communicated to the viewer, with perhaps just the slight movement of an eye, is so clever in the books, and this is mimicked very well in this version.

The puppets are skilfully made and manipulated with imaginative staging and the tale is well-told, so another eight minutes or so well spent for any age.