Why cruise ships could be the new rep training

If there’s are any stars in this outstanding, wow-factor ensemble show they are Timothy Bird, set and projection designer and Aideen Malone, lighting designer. Between them they create a moving river, a sinister wood and a busy book-shelved home for Badger – among other things. It all fills the Rose’s big thrust/arena playing space and you’re riveted from the moment you take your seat.

Adapted and directed by Ciaran McConville, the Rose’s talented director of learning and participation, this The Wind in the Willows uses a central cast of six adults supported by a team of twenty-three of the venue’s youth theatre members. On press night it was the red team and, my word, they did well.

McConville’s version presents a colourful cast of animals which don’t usually appear in adaptations of The Wind in the Willows. Amelie Abbot, for example, is outstanding as the diminutive Doris Dormouse who is frightened of everything but who eventually finds the courage to stand up for what is right and twice hits the terrifying Putin-esque Chief Weasel (fabulous performance by Oliver Smith) over the head with a saucepan. And Milly Stephens is a show-stealer as Kitten Rabbit who, tiny as she is keeps asking pertinent questions and making hilariously penetrating comments. We also get timid hedgehogs, fussy crows, a delightful (Billy Rilot) otter cub and more along, of course, with ferrets and weasels. Three teenage actors function around the action as narrators and McConville’s script remains very close to Grahame’s original novel so we get a lot of his colourful emotive language – nothing is dumbed down in this show which is as intelligent as it is accessible.

There’s fine work from the adults too. Emma Pallant is a Penelope Keith-style female Ratty – tall, lanky, attractive, sometimes stentorian, usually forthright but always kind and decent. Gary Mitchinson’s bespectacled north country mole in search of adventure, but in need of friends, is appealing in a black velvet jacket. Derek Elroy’s Badger is warm and, eventually moving once his work is complete. There’s an enjoyable performance from Joy Brook as the no-nonsene but “good egg” Mrs Otter and, Michael Taibi is suitably wicked as the leading stoat. And, of course, Jamie Baughan both has, and provides, lots of fun as the irrepressible “poop-pooping Toad. Baugham is the largest character on stage in every sense and he sings the patter songs, provided by musical director/composer Eamonn O’Dwyer, immaculately in a resonant bass voice.

There are a lot of issues in The Wind in the Willows and McConville has adeptly pointed them up without labouring them. Yes, you leave the theatre chuckling (rhetoric beginning “Friends, weasels, countrymen” was my favourite line) and humming but also reflecting on bullying, friendship, teamwork, leadership, forgiveness, death – and a whole lot more.

If you want to see a glitteringly entertaining, moving, thoughtful, funny family show, get yourself to Kingston.

Photo: Mark Douet

Michelle Magorian’s 1940s evacuation novel has moved millions of people since it was first published in 1981. And David Wood’s skilful adaptation which has enjoyed several West End seasons and tours since its first outing at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2011 has – like the TV film starring John Thaw – brought it to many more. Cambridge Theatre Company is the first non-professional group to have secured the rights to stage Goodnight Mister Tom so, in effect, this show is an amateur world premiere.

Richard Sockett gives a stupendous performance as Tom Oakley, initially gruff, damaged and reclusive. Then the arrival of abused, frightened, frail Willie Beech (Lewis Long or Jacob Preston) from war torn Deptford forces him to take responsibility for another human being and we watch two people awaking humanity and vulnerability in each other. It’s a story which cannot fail to move and most people have long forgotten that it was originally published as a children’s book.

There’s pleasing work from all the children in the cast and a lot of well thought out ensemble doubling from the adults who become various villagers, Londoners, policemen, nursing staff and much more. Special mention though for William Males who puppets Sammy the dog. Made by Jasmine Haskell, Sammy is a life size black and white collie who does everything a dog does so convincingly that the 14 year old with me said that for several minutes she thought he was real.

In two and a quarter hours the audience, many of whom (including me) have got through several tissues by the end, is led to explore death, bereavement, the process of grieving, psychotic mental illness, decency and what it means as well as the transformative power of drama – as the children in the village, evacuees and locals rehearse and stage plays as an antidote to the horrors of the war-torn 1940s. It’s an emotional rollercoaster but very satisfying.

I have seen David Wood’s play three times before: twice with Oliver Ford Davies in the title role and once with David Troughton as Tom. I have to report that although, obviously, Cambridge Theatre Company has tighter budgets the quality of the acting, which director Sarah Ingram brings out in her cast, compares very favourably with professional versions.