Children's party entertainers - are they always cringeworthy?

[Anna8888]

Yesterday I took my daughter to a three year old's birthday party where there was an "entertainer"; this was the first time either my daughter or I had seen an "entertainer" in action. I sat on the sofa and cringed with embarrassment at a rather ugly 30 year old woman dressed as a flower fairy and telling stories badly. My usually highly sociable daughter looked on, bemused, and wondered why there wasn't dancing at this party (she was not "entertained").

Is it always this bad? Or did we just get very unlucky?

I've just sat through 2 shows at the pre-school I work at and the adults laughed as much as the children. He's the best I've seen

The two I have seen recently have been fairly dreadful. Both a similar concept to what you describe (they did do dancing though). But one was worse at telling stories than I am, and had a laughably poor idea of what party games were suitable for a third birthday party (chinese whispers was particularly unsuccessful).

We have an absolutely brilliant one near here. He does the school discos and we had him for DS2's party last spring - he is hysterical and great at controlling any 'hecklers'. He does great adlut discos too.

I had a great one for dd's 4th birthday - balloon animals, plate spinning, parachute games. He was very funny and went down a storm.