The Wind in the Willows (Susan Elkin reviews)

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.

t isn’t often you see a youth theatre show presented with full professional production values and I’ve been lucky enough to see two this Christmas (the other was The Wind in the Willows at Rose Theatre, Kingston). This Peter Pan (my third PP this year) is played entirely by CFYT members and there are no professionals in the cast. And, in the hands of director, Dale Rooks who heads Chichester Festival Theatre’s impressive Learning and Participation Department, it’s a magnificent show. The scale is epic because, of course, the playing space is large and enables Rooks to have big groups of dancing mermaids, stamping pirates, (very) lost boys, Red Indians and so on. Every single individual is skilfully grafted into to a slickly accomplished ensemble.

At the heart of the show is outstanding work by Sephora Parish as Wendy on press night – she alternates at other performances with Amy Norman. Sephora is a very naturalistic actor who finds exactly the right blend of feisty feminism, maternal instinct, burgeoning adult feelings towards Peter and childish need for her own mother in her very complex role. Darcy Collins (alternating with Megan O’Hanlon) creates a fine, angry, ever-present Tinker Bell who communicates very effectively in squeaks and gestures. Her epaulettes light up and her trainers flash. Sami Green’s Peter (his alter ego is Freddie Hill) is suitably rueful, sparky, sad, loyal and brave but ultimately a loner.

This production, rather refreshingly, goes back to JM Barrie’s script and uses many unfamiliar words and lines. It makes the dialogue sound slightly stilted in places but the benefits outweigh that because the characters – especially amongst the lost boys are unusually well developed.

Another very successful decision is to create the Neverland set (designed by Simon Higlet) based on a scaled up iron-railed bed. It reminds us that we are never actually very far from the nursery the piece begins and ends in because, in a sense, the whole construct is a children’s dream fantasy.

A six-piece live band, led by Musical Director, Colin Billing provides atmospheric background music, composed by Eamonn O’Dwyer. This isn’t musical theatre but music is an important strand in managing the mood. It also allows song where it’s appropriate, such as the pirates’ robust, stamping shanty.

Costumes (by Ryan Dawson Laight) are inspired too. We are, more or less in modern, or at least timeless, dress. The motley lost boys in yellows and browns have a look of Lord of the Flies about them with their little rucksacks and individual personalised items such the odd tie round a head. The pirates look genuinely menacing and brigand-like and Hook (Hal Darling on press night, alternating with Alexander Hughes) is, praise be, not styled as Charles II, Instead he has Fagin-esque straggly hair and a floor-length coat. And the mermaids dancing with jelly fish umbrellas are an immaculately choreographed delight.

Flying is bound to be a problem in a youth theatre production but the puppetry solution works beautifully. It’s all part of the captivating make-believe game and rarely has the suspension of disbelief been so easy.

It is quite unusual for a venue to turn its main house over to its youth theatre rather than producing an income generating populist professional show such as a pantomime. Bravo Chichester Festival Theatre. It’s an enlightened policy, more than justified by the quality and verve of the work.

The Fairies. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Poor people lie at the heart of the Robin Hood legend although they usually get lost when the tale suffers the pantomime treatment. Greg Banks’ engaging, intelligent version begins and ends with the poor – and as a certain charismatic orator is reported once to have said, they are with us always. The poor who open and close this show are hungry, homeless and cold and they could be anywhere at any time in history. It is they who act out a four-hander ensemble retelling of Robin Hood, improvising their props as they go along. The device isn’t original, of course, but it works to excellent effect here by putting a fresh, disturbingly topical, spin on the story.

Rebecca Killick, lithe and diminutive is one of those actors who lights up the stage. A lively mover (she shins up a rope without knots) and sweet-voiced singer, she presents a feisty, fresh Marion (among other roles) and has a delightful knack of smiling as she sings. Stephen Leask is splendid as camp Prince John, decent Friar Tuck and red capped Will Scarlet and he does a nice little turn with an imaginary, but vociferous, dog before the show starts. Peter Edwards, is equally versatile as Robin Hood and other parts while Nik Howden gives us an utterly hateful Sheriff of Nottingham who leaps in and out of other roles so adeptly that you barely notice it’s the same man.

The simple songs (by Thomas Johnson), with infectiously muscular choreography, have a distinct whiff of the folksy 1960s about them and are accompanied by a fine three-piece band – all female which is a refreshing change. The band is placed on a small dais in a corner of the intimate auditorium configured in the round within the venue’s eponymous oval shape. Hannah Wolfe’s set consists mostly of sawn off trees and logs which represent the forest and obstacles of various kinds.

It’s a chirpy, physical show with seamless ensemble story telling and some very slick switches. It pulsates along with admirable energy and verve. The pacing is good too. I think everyone in the room is surprises when Nik Howden leads a lyrical quartet in a beautifully nuanced falsetto The fights (directed by Tom Jordan) are impressve too, especially given how close the actors are to the audience.

I don’t ever recall seeing a show which has been sponsored by a school before. Well done King Edward’s School Bath where staff clearly understand the extraordinary but immeasurable power of drama and theatre.

bloodiest. Presented as a six hander it runs for just ninety tense minutes. And unlike just about every other abridged Hamlet there is no doubling apart from a resurrected Polonius (David Fielder) morphing into the gravedigger. Instead we get, for example, a conflation of Laertes with Horatio and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Also neat is the way Kelly Hunter runs one scene on the back of another so that, for example the mad scene segues out of the closet scene and the final scene takes place around the body of Ophelia (Francesca Zoutewelle) as if we were still at the graveside. It makes for very coherent, well paced storytelling – and also means you’re not fretting about the last train as you do towards the end of a full-length Hamlet.

Mark Arends as Hamlet trembles, weeps, twitches, has fits during which he’s possessed by his father’s ghost, sings, and succumbs to childish tantrums, as well as having, and using, what must be the most expressive feet in the industry. They’re as delicate and articulate as another pair of hands. It’s a riveting performance. Highly talented Francesca Zoutewelle gives us the most harrowing mad scene ever and Katy Stephens is pretty mesmerising as a drunken, troubled Gertrude trying to conceal her own misery even from herself. She dies horribly and beautifully. Tom Mannion’s measured, manipulative Claudius is enhanced by his magnificent speaking voice and David Fielder does wonderful things with his penetrating, darting eyes as nosy but unfortunate Polonius. Finlay Cormack finds plenty of passion in his composite Laertes role too.

This Hamlet is effectively an intimate family drama played in a small black box studio which makes it feel appropriately immersive. The simple set helps too – it consists mostly of a black leather sofa which gets imaginatively used for various purposes including the provision of a hiding place for eavesdroppers.

On the whole this is a very interesting and well thought out take on the play with some outstanding acting. I have only two gripes. The dropping into modern English and the reworking of the play within a play as a game feels awkward and contrived. Secondly, the famous unearthed skull is definitely Yorrick’s. There has never been any textual doubt about that since the day the play was written. So why use a skull which is clearly not human?