There was a great story in one of the local papers yesterday about young chap called Ollie.
Ollie is a resident of Brixton Hill who was out for a walk in Kennington Park when he was spotted by a employee of the Barbican theatre. Now Ollie is taking centre stage as part of the Young Vic's production of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin...as Snowy the dog.
Yes, (and we're sure you guessed this three sentences ago) Ollie is actually a West Highland terrier who happens to resemble the faithful companion of the plucky, boy reporter.
According to Ollie's owner, Lizzie Ironside, Ollie had to audition for the part and proved his lovey abilities when "The producer called out 'Snowy' and although Ollie isn't called Snowy he came when he was called. He understood he was called for the role."
Even more amazingly Ollie "has a very big dressing room apparently."
As you know Londonist can't resist this kind of 'fairytale story', especially when it happens to a dog. But we just hope that stardom doesn't go to little Ollie's head. Let's hope Lizzie keeps all four of his little paws firmly on the ground so come January we're not writing stories about how Ollie's been seen at Stringfellows snorting coke and beating up tabloid journalists.
(What we've just realised while writing this up is that we have no idea who's playing Tintin himself. We've checked the Barbican website and there's no mention of the starring role. Can anyone enlighten us?)
