The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Graeme
Adapted and directed by Oliver Gray
Illyria
St Paul’s Church Theatre Garden, Covent Garden
Star rating: 4
This bijoux take on Kenneth Graeme’s 1908 story bubbles with charm and highlights the skills of four talented actors.
Illyria specialises in outdoor touring and they always deliver the goods with aplomb. This time, the set is a little more elaborate than sometimes. Against the fixed gates of Toad Hall we get various places such as Mole End through manually lifted or flapped semi flats or boxes, along with Rat’s boat, Toad’s car and caravan. It must take skilled stage management and, as ever, the slick costume changes are like watching an elaborate, very fast dance.
Rachel O’Hare gives us an earnest, young mole, always asking questions but also able to make her own decisions. Moreover, she delights as the gaoler’s flirty daughter and the conniving clerk of the court, among other roles. Callum Stewart has huge fun as Toad, who is really just a naughty child finding his feet and, interestingly, in this version he expresses contrition at the end and apparently means it because there is no suggestion of a new aircraft craze. Nicholas Lee’s Rat is benign, friendly and longsuffering and his Trump-ian account of the Chief Weasel is masterly. Then there’s Edward Simpson, a very familiar Illyria face, as a furious magistrate and a headmasterly Badger. All four actors excel in voice work and use a whole range of different accents to distinguish their range of characters
Graeme’s novel is much fuller than most people realise from the many adaptations most of us have seen. So it’s always interesting to see bits which rarely make the cut. Adapter/director Oliver Gray, for example, has included the Sea Rat, whose adventures are envied by Rat, which gives Simpson a little hornpipe and a jolly song in which Alaska rhymes with Madagascar and Madeira with Riviera. Mr Otter is in too, played by Stewart as the busy but companionable father who brews beer in his airing cupboard, a type we all know. And thank goodness Gray got the carol singers in because that’s the loveliest episode in the book – Simpson, a timid field mouse singing Joy Shall Be Yours in the Morning.
The garden behind St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden – commonly known as The Actors’ Church – is a delightful setting for theatre. It’s not only very pretty but feels self contained because there are buildings all round and the noise from the piazza really doesn’t distract too much.
In short: yet another fine Illyria production.
