Narnia Business

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

The REP, Birmingham, Thursday 26^th November, 2015

 

The REP’s Christmas offering this year pulls out all the stops in terms of production values in order to bring C S Lewis’s classic novel to the stage in this adaptation by Adrian Mitchell. It looks and sounds great. Jamie Vartan’s set has layers that strip away: the real world of the Pevensie siblings is rather two-dimensional but once they step through the eponymous wardrobe, they find themselves in the 3D land of Narnia. The snow-laden landscape looks beautiful under Colin Grenfell’s lights, and with original music by Shaun Davey played live under the baton of MD Neil MacDonald, there is much to appreciate. Narnia’s weird inhabitants (some of them are animals, some are anthropomorphic animals, and some are mythical creatures) are brought to life by some expressive and delightful puppets and some inventive costume designs, inspired no doubt by The Lion King. The transitions between the two worlds, where time moves differently, are stylishly done.

And so technically and artistically, the show is very strong.

The casting too is great. Allison McKenzie doubles as the stern housekeeper and the White Witch, self-appointed Queen of Narnia. She struts around melodramatically and the most incredible vocal sounds come out of her in moments of duress. She’s an enjoyable baddie, a despotic diva. Thomas Aldridge and Sophia Nomvete bring humour (and tons of exposition) as Mr and Mrs Beaver, while Jo Servi is a likeable Mr Tumnus the faun.

The four children are led by handsome Michael Lanni as eldest brother Peter, striving to be grown-up but still childlike at times. Leonie Elliott is solid as sensible Susan, James Thackeray is a suitably surly and self-serving Edmund, and Emilie Fleming brings out the naivety and innocence of youngest sister Lucy. It’s never easy to have adults playing children alongside other adults, but these four pull it off rather credibly.

My problem is with the material. C S Lewis’s heavy-handed allegory has never sat well with me, and Aslan the lion (an impressive, beautifully articulated, three-man puppet that reminds me of War Horse) is unbearably pompous.

Narnia is full of contradictions. They have tea and toast but don’t know what a wardrobe or a spare room are. How they source their Turkish delight is another mystery. But these are quibbles compared to the main plot itself. The children are helped by the Beavers, a funny, friendly couple who turn out to be religious nutters. How quickly the kids are indoctrinated into their cult of Aslan! And then Father Christmas himself rocks up and arms them with weapons for their holy war against the oppressor, the White Witch. The sacrifice and resurrection of Aslan – the most blatant part of the allegory – should be the most powerful part of the story, but by then I’m past caring. It’s all too po-faced and self-important to engage me. Ah, says the Witch, there’s some deep magic rules that mean I can do this. Oh, says Aslan, what she doesn’t know is there’s some deeper magic rules which mean I can do this. Oh, give over, I think, giving up trying to suspend my disbelief.

The play needs to be a little less earnest and to lighten up a lot. It’s all a bit worthy for my tastes to be involving – A pity because the talent on stage and the creativity behind the scenes demonstrate that excellence is well within reach.

Closet cases: White Witch Allison McKenzie confronts Aslan with a plot twist. (Photo: Graeme Braidwood)

 

We’re All Going On A Soma Holiday

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, Thursday 5^th November, 2015

 

Aldous Huxley’s visionary 1930s novel is doing the rounds in this new adaptation by Dawn King, and it’s refreshing to see serious science fiction being tackled live on stage. It turns out Huxley’s ideas have lost none of their sting or pertinence. In fact the brave new world he depicts seems frighteningly close, given the technological advances and ideological backwards moves that have happened since his day.

We begin in the London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where its Director (James Howard) addresses us as newly arrived trainees. It’s a nifty means of exposition, detailing how this society operates and Howard is smarmily splendid in his PR spiel. The alphas and betas in society get the cream, while further down the social scale, the epsilons would be lucky even to glimpse the carton.   This caste system is achieved mainly by genetic engineering (natural reproduction has been eliminated) in vitro and then social conditioning brainwashes the resulting children into a narrow way of life that promises them Order, Stability, and Happiness – this latter comes in the form of a freely available drug called Soma. Take four and you can have a holiday, just zonk out for a specified period, truly getting away from it all.

Bernard, though, is a bit of a misfit. Not quite alpha enough, he isn’t accepted and is excluded from the general promiscuity all around him. Until he takes popular Lenina (Olivia Morgan) to visit the Savage Reservation where people live like beasts, drinking, reproducing, and practising religion. Imagine! They bring back John, who turns out to have links back home. John finds it hard to accept his new way of life and becomes something of a celebrity, a novelty act, stirring ‘inappropriate’ feelings within the impressionable Lenina.

As Bernard, Gruffudd Glyn is a sympathetic figure in this alien way of life. Olivia Morgan convinces as the thoroughly conditioned Lenina (and I’m not talking about her hair), while William Postlethwaite’s savage John is a commanding presence – he gets all the best lines, quoting Shakespeare at every opportunity. Ironic that a literary figure we regard as a pinnacle of human endeavour is banned and derided for his ‘tricky emotional content’. In charge of it all is an icy Sophie Ward as Margaret Mond, chilling in her detachment but not entirely inhuman, contrasting with derelict Linda (Abigail McKern making an excellent drunkard and invalid).

Director James Dacre keeps the action clear, using cross-cutting and freeze-frames to zap us from scene to scene and back again. Naomi Dawson’s design is deceptively simple, making effective use of TV screens and projections to give us glimpses of the world beyond the windows, aided by the precision of Colin Grenfell’s lighting and George Dennis’s sound. There is evocative, original music by These New Puritans.

It’s an absorbing, thought-provoking and scary piece. The society on stage is divided by genetic interference. Here we see social engineering at work, pricing the poor out of London, while certain politicians promote division based on cultural and racial differences. In Huxley’s day it was the rise of Nazi Germany. We are more in peril of surrendering our freedoms to corporate overlords. Suddenly the advent of the Coca-Cola lorry does not seem so cosy. All right, it’s not exactly delivering Soma but the way people profess love for this symbol of rampant capitalism should be a warning sign…

All the feels: Olivia Morgan and William Postlethwaite (Photo: Manuel Harlan)

Big Babies

BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS

Derby Theatre, Tuesday 25^th June, 2013

I have nostalgic memories about Dennis Potter’s play, which was originally written for television.  The piece itself, since adapted for the stage, is riddled with nostalgia as a cast of adult actors run around, representing a group of children during the Second World War.   The theatrical device of having grown-ups play children later surfaced in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers but I think Potter did it first.

There are similarities with Lord of the Flies in that there are no adult characters and we see the children interacting on their own terms: their negotiating of relationships and status within the pecking order, their adherence to perceived rules, their sudden cruelties, and their imaginative play.   This is childhood back in the days when children actually went out to play, before they started being ferried everywhere by their parents, before paranoia about paedophiles and so on clouded everyone’s judgment, before the internet isolated everyone at home… I’m not so old I can remember the War but I do remember being allowed out.

Christopher Price is Peter, a bit of a bully and admired by all.  He embodies the physicality of the boy perfectly as well as the psychological processes.  David Nellist’s Willie is more sensitive – when he’s not running around pretending to be an aeroplane.  Joanna Holden’s Audrey has a lust for violence, urging her friend to give the doll a smack to shut it up.  She is a resilient girl, epitomising the shifting loyalties and the power struggles within this societal group. Her friend Angela (Tilly Gaunt) is prettier and more ‘girly’ – the pair form an effective double act. Phil Cheadle’s John challenges Peter’s status and a fight breaks out, a proper childish scuffle, rough and tumble of a skirmish – the boys reach detente soon afterwards.  James Bolt’s Raymond is a stammerer and therefore a target for mockery but it is Adrian Grove’s Donald who is the outsider.  A lonely boy, pining for his missing-in-action father, Donald has a penchant for arson, which leads to tragedy.

The children realise they have to make-believe they had nothing to do with Donald’s demise.  They have to use their play-acting to keep them out of serious trouble.  This is the moment when innocence is lost and adulthood beckons.  Childhood is not sweeties and games, Potter tells us, but rather the training ground for the harshness and deceits that will inevitably come our way.

Ruari Murchison’s set is simple and effective.  A curving slope evokes landscape and a tall stepladder represents the barn.  Coupled with Colin Grenfell’s lighting, the set transports us to locations in an impressionistic way but it is the excellent cast that truly make this production outstanding.  Director Psyche Stott has prepared them superbly well and delivers all the shifts in mood and tone seamlessly.  The energy of childhood and the tensions of their relationships bounce off the stage.  I came away feeling wistful for my own childhood although perhaps it could be said I remain an adult-sized person who behaves like a child.