When the smallest of creatures hitches a lift on the tail of one of the largest, the scene is set for an exciting journey across the world.

Children’s author Julia Donaldson’s classic tale The Snail and the Whale has been turned into a stage play, and is set to appear on the Gaiety Theatre stage next week, on Wednesday, and Thursday, August 29 and 30.

The tale of how the snail gets taken around the world on the back of a friendly giant blue whale, only then to help save him when he becomes beached has been imaginatively turned into a children’s show, told through the eyes of a young girl who longs to join her father, a sailor in the Royal Navy, as he journeys across the globe.

Hannah Miller plays the daughter and the snail, with Tim Hibberd playing the father and the whale. Rachel Benson narrates and also plays violin.

It has been created by Tall Stories, who have also interpreted some other famous Julia Donaldson books, namely the Gruffalo and Room on the Broom for the stage, featuring imagery inspired by the illustrator Axel Scheffler.

The director Toby Mitchell said that there were many challenges of adapting the well-loved tales into stage plays, but they have been well received, and have even been praised by the author herself.

’The original challenge was thinking about how to put that story on stage, with those two very different characters,’ said Toby. ’Reading an article about Storybook Soldiers gave us the idea of telling the story with a young daughter representing the snail, who desperately wants to go around the world with her father, the whale.

’Then, it was a question of fitting the two stories together seamlessly and clearly, so the audience knows where they are within each one.

’This is the fourth Donaldson/Scheffler book we have adapted and we’re always invigorated by their brilliant stories.

’When we first had the idea for how to adapt the book, we spoke to Julia about it, and while she wasn’t sure how the two stories would fit together, she trusted us to work it out.

’Both Julia and Axel have seen the show, and enjoyed it. Phew!’

Tickets for ’The Snail and the Whale’, which is rated as suitable for children aged four onwards, are £10 for adults and £8 for children, with family tickets £34, available online from villagaiety.com