Great news for families  in the new Lawrence  Batley theatre season.

And that’s before we’ve even  polished off the current run of  programming.

The imagine series continues to be  on of the Huddersfield theatre’s  biggest success stories.

The shows are held  once a month  on a Saturday and offer a great way  into the theatre going habit for  families with young children.

The shows are, after all, pure  delight. Sit down with your  children  and watch as they are transported  to worlds full of magic and  imagination.

The Imagine series brings some top  quality children’s theatre companies  to Huddersfield.  These are  performers with stories to tell,  music to play and young minds to  excite.

Try out that magical way to start  your family weekend next week  when  Imagine favourites   Blunderbus Theatre Company head  back to Huddersfield.

The company will stage four  shows  at the LBT next Saturday and  Sunday (11am and 2pm).

They will be telling the story of  Dotty the Dragon.

It’s an outdoor performance in the  theatre’s Courtyard space and   is  packed with puppets and live  music.

The show is the last  of the current  season. But there’s a whole batch of   other shows round the corner just  waiting for everyone to get back  from their holidays.

But first, there’s Dotty, a baby fire  dragon who lives at the top of a  mountain with her grumpy dad, Mr  Dragon.

 In the village below, everyone fears  for their lives, for dragon’s eat  children! Or so they believe.

 But Dotty would never eat children!  Not ever. She’s a vegetarian .

One day, as she watches the  children playing, she decides to join  them. What could go wrong?  Everyone loves surprises, don’t  they?

The show has been adapted for the  stage by  Bill Davies, with music and  lyrics by Frank Goodhind .

If you enjoyed last season’s, The   Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark  from the same company, then you  are going to love this.

The new autumn season of Imagine  kicks of in September and runs right  through until January.

There is a whole clutch of stories,  most of  them classics that you will  know well. And there’s also one of  the popular  hands on workshops  which this time has LBT  artist-in-residence Kim Searle there  to help.

The Gingerbread Man, The  Sorcerer’s Apprentice and  The Boy  Who Cried Wolf are all stories that  families will know and will enjoy  getting re-acquainted with.

Clydebuilt Puppet Theatre is first in  on September 14 and you’ve just got  to join the Gingerbread Man to see  if he can outwit the dastardly fox.

Garlic Theatre returns to tells us the  story of the boy with magic at his  fingertips in The Sorcerer’s  Apprentice (October 26) and there  will be a  big welcome too for Tutti  Frutti, always popular and back with  two shows.

First there’s that Boy Who Cried  Wolf (November 30) plus this year’s  Christmas show, Rapunzel. Both are  by Mike Kenny, the award-winning  writer behind last year’s LBT  Christmas show Beauty and The  Beast.

Birdsnest theatre sweeps in in early  November with Blown Away, a story  which promises to whisk children  off an unforgettable journey and  then in January, it’s story time  around the kitchen table, quite  literally with DNA Puppetry and  visual Theatre’s Chicken Lickin.  Sounds good.

Box office on 01484 430528 and they  can confirm what age range shows  are appropriate for.