David Berenbaum

When young Buddy falls into Santa's gift sack on Christmas Eve, he's transported back to the North Pole and raised as a toy-making elf by Santa's helpers. But as he grows into adulthood, he can't shake the nagging feeling that he doesn't belong. Buddy vows to visit Manhattan and find his real dad, a workaholic.

Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.

Workaholic Jim Evers and his wife/business partner Sara get a call one night from a mansion owner, Edward Gracey, who wants to sell his house. Once the Evers family arrive at the mansion, a torrential thunderstorm of mysterious origin strands them with the brooding, eccentric Gracey, his mysterious butler, and a variety of residents both seen and unseen.

A love potion works its devious charms on fairies, elves and the swamp-dwelling Bog King as they all try to possess the potion for themselves.

Jack Shepard is an out-of-shape auto shop owner, far removed from the man who once protected the world's freedom. Reluctantly called back into action by the government, Jack is tasked with turning a ragtag group of kids with special powers into a new generation of superheroes to save the world from certain destruction.

Santa narrates the story of Buddy's travels to New York City to meet the father he never knew he had. Along the way his unrelenting cheer transforms the lives of everyone he meets and opens his father's eyes to the magic of Christmas.

West End star Ben Forster takes the role Will Ferrell made famous on the silver screen in this toe-tapping stage adaptation of the 2003 festive comedy. Staged at the Lowry in Salford, this family-friendly musical tells the story of Buddy, a young orphan child who crawls into Father Christmas's bag of gifts one year, and is accidentally whisked away to the North Pole, where the nonplussed elves raise him as one of their own. Years later, once Buddy has grown to adulthood, he returns to New York City to find his birth father and help the people of the Big Apple rediscover the true meaning of Christmas. Also starring Liz McClarnon, Louis Emerick, Joe McGann and Jessica Martin.