IF you have ever wondered just where all those lost pair of underpants end up, you may have been looking in the wrong place according to the popular children’s book, Aliens Love Underpants.

Instead of searching down the back of the drawer or the bottom of the laundry bins, you should really have been looking to the skies. The book, by Clare Freedman and Ben Cort, claims that instead they keep getting stolen by extra-terrestrial visitors to planet Earth.

The book itself isn’t a story as such – more a vividly illustrated wacky poem, full of fun ideas and vibrant imagery to fire up kids’ imaginations. As such there is a relatively blank slate for a stage production to work with, story-wise.

The show, adapted and directed by Adam Bampton-Smith, tells the tale of Timmy, a schoolboy whose own underwear falls victim to the  pants-loving aliens collection, and who takes a trip into outer space with the friendly bug-eyed creatures to find out more about their strange obsession.

The show is designed to be enjoyed by children from two years up, and it certainly did its job on that score. My three-year old thoroughly enjoyed it – particularly when we left planet Earth, with an impressively starry set to enjoy.

The songs are lively and the performances are all good, with the cast throwing themselves into the zany tale and enjoying plenty of interaction with the young audience.

The show, presented by Big Wooden Horse and Nick Brooke Limited, has a relatively brief running time of about 55 minutes, with no interval – so not too long for any kids who might find it hard to sit still for lengthy periods of time.

But a couple of the early songs feel a bit like padding as we listen to schoolteachers and underwear shopkeepers when really we probably just want to see the aliens get up to their antics. Things become more fun when the aliens (in the form of puppets) turn up to get collecting those pants from washing-lines and shops.

And the tale itself is not much more than one boy’s quick trip into space – while it doesn’t need anything too elaborate, a bit more story wouldn’t have gone amiss, particularly for any older children in the audience.

But having said all that, Aliens Love Underpants certainly made for a fun trip to the theatre. The young children lapped up the show, and thoroughly enjoyed their trip to the far-reaches of the galaxy to solve the mystery of all those missing pants.

For more information about the show, or to see where else it is performing, go to www.underpantslive.com