A RENOWNED children's author brought her award-winning tales to life for audiences as part of the Bermuda Festival for the Performing Arts.

The featured the works of Julia Donaldson who, with her husband Malcolm, appeared onstage at the Daylesford Theatre over the weekend.

The UK writer is renowned for her colourful performances which regularly incorporate songs she has written, a collection of stuffed characters from her books, and the enthusiasm of her audiences. After Bermuda, the Donaldsons will travel on to engagements in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Travel is something they have enjoyed since they first met as students at Bristol University. Mr. Donaldson was then in medical school while Mrs. Donaldson pursued drama and French.

"As part of my studies, I had to live in France for six months, where with a group of friends, I started busking," she said. A common practice in Europe, the group started performing regularly and, when Mr. Donaldson came over for a visit, he joined in.

The two began dating on their return to England and continued writing and performing songs for specific events. The greater portion of their repertoire included children's songs, although the pair recall a group of dentists that regularly hired them to perform "specially written songs about teeth".

"Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country ? the best one was in Italian about pasta," said Mrs. Donaldson. "The busking led to a career in singing and songwriting, mainly for children's television. I became an expert at writing to order on such subjects as guinea pigs, window cleaning and horrible smells. 'We want a song about throwing crumpled-up wrapping paper into the bin' was a typical request from the BBC."

One of the songs, , was eventually made into an illustrated book.

"Once I had the book in my hands I thought, 'I want to do more of this'," she said in explaining the twist in her career. "I had already written lots of little plays for my sons' school and, after the book was published, I was led to get the plays published. I kept writing and eventually wrote which completely took off ? like gold dust."

The book is about a mouse who invents a creature, the Gruffalo, to protect him from predators. The problems start when he finds the Gruffalo really exists.

A paediatrician, Mr. Donaldson took a year off work to help his wife with her career and do medical research. In their hour-long performance at Daylesford, the Donaldsons introduced audiences to the Gruffalo as well as characters from other best-selling books by the author ? a naughty princess, a stupid butterfly and a wicked emperor.

Said Mr. Donaldson of the characters' transition to stage: "We used to do street theatre together. We would go to a poor estate in Bristol and do improvisational shows for the kids. We'd go from (area to area) and they would follow us and join in the performance. And what we came to realise was that if we gave children simple lines and costumes, they could actually do some amazing things. The books we'll be doing are , and ? and in between that we might do a song or two."

Added Mrs. Donaldson: "There's a tradition in the UK, where authors get invited into schools to give talks. It's my style to do it in a very dramatic way and I've found ways to enact stories over the years. With , it's basically Malcolm and me prowling about the stage. With another book, , there's a monkey and a butterfly and we get children to come onstage and mimic different animals to see if they're the right mum for the pair. It makes it fun for them to have the show broken into different sections, they don't have to concentrate too long on one thing."

Although their journey to the island came via an invitation by the Bermuda Festival of the Performing Arts, the Donaldsons admitted there was a bonus for them in the visit ? Mrs. Donaldson's aunt, Mary Hopkins, lives here.

"My mother's sister was the head teacher at Saltus Cavendish and so this gave us a chance to see her," Mrs. Donaldson said. "The invitation to the Bermuda Festival came out of the blue.

"We'd already decided to take the year off and were to go to New Zealand but then suddenly we got invited to the Bermuda Festival. We were going to decline, to suggest we might perhaps do it another year, but I think it was Karen (Pollard) from the festival who (encouraged us).

"And so now, my publisher's involved and we're on a world tour. Before this, we did a tour of England theatres and spent a week in Germany and after, we're going to book events in Australia, New Zealand, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea."

Added Mr. Donaldson: "We've been so impressed with Bermuda. The people are all so friendly. We had a great flight, got off the plane, and were amazed there were three people from the Festival at the airport to welcome us. We were delighted with the people singing at the airport about how great it is to be in Bermuda."