A while ago we reported on Storm Boy because the idea of a friendship between a young boy and a pelican called Mr Percival caught our hearts and more importantly our attention, and recently we've been seeing how the game plays out for ourselves as we dived into this tale for ourselves on the Nintendo Switch.

Scotch College Year 8 student recording of the book, Storm Boy

Tom Holloway’s adaptation clearly has a younger audience in mind and there’s certainly no shortage of Christmas cracker jokes and pelican bum biting humour getting the right laughs at the right points. While an exploration of father and son communication is pertinent at present, it does lack some sophistication and feels a little blatant, but for the most part, the script holds up.

When Barking Gecko Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company’s stage adaptation of Colin Thiele’s beloved 1964 novella Storm Boy premiered two years ago, it was in front of an audience made up mainly of adults from the theatre world. Playwright Tom Holloway’s version has a clear focus on younger audiences (although that’s not to say there’s not plenty for adults to enjoy) ...

John Batchelor loves to make people laugh. Even more, he loves to tell an emotionally powerful story and that’s why he has embraced the role of Hideaway Tom, the loving but grieving father of title character Storm Boyin this month’s Queensland Theatre production.

A digital version of the program from the Queensland Theatre Storm Boy production.

A runaway hit in 2013, this collaboration with Perth’s Barking Gecko Theatre Company is a vivid stage adaptation of Colin Thiele’s much-loved story. In 2015, it’s back for a very limited encore season.

In a warehouse in South Brisbane, hundreds of wooden pieces cut by lasers are about to become puppets and bring a classic Australian story to life.