“DID you enjoy that?”, I asked my eldest nephew when the curtain came down on Peppa Pig Live.

“YESSSSS!” he beamed, throwing his voice towards the roof of Manchester’s Opera House.

“What was your favourite bit?”, I queried, hoping for a bit of analysis through a child’s eyes.

After careful thought he said: “All of it!”

My son is too young to communicate in such ways yet, but with his eyes fixed on the stage throughout the performance, dancing and clapping along to the many songs, I knew he felt the same.

The performance opened at the nursery school with Daisy (a human) playing hide and seek with her friends Pedro Pony, Suzy Sheep and Gerald Giraffe.

All the characters were manipulated by actors and actresses, but dressed in black, it was discreetly done with them crouching behind the large puppets whenever possible.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Peppa and George took to the stage. All the children’s faces lit up and there was excited chatter throughout the theatre as their favourite television show came to life in front of a bright and colourful backdrop.

Madame Gazelle brought some order to proceedings before nursery rhymes and songs familiar to the cartoon, like the Bing Bong song, were sung.

The scene was set for a camping trip which began after the interval with Daddy Pig driving a bus from A to B.

The campsite provided a real sensory experience with darkness falling and neon images illuminating the stage and night time animals and insects swooping around. There was a burst of rain when morning broke, which took a few members of the audience by surprise, but even the wettest ones took it in good spirit because it meant Peppa could do what she does best, and jump in muddy puddles.

With a half-hour first half, 15-minute interval and 45-minute second half it is perfectly timed to hold the attention of even the youngest child there, and there were babes in arms.

My youngest nephew had nodded his head enthusiastically when asked for his thoughts on the show at the end.

A day later, waving his spinning, light-up George Pig wand he said: “I loved it! We all loved it.”

And he was right. Everyone loved Peppa Pig Live.