Wowed by Witches
Notebook open, with pen in hand, young reviewer Frida suddenly freezes as Roald Dahl’s Witches sweep onstage, strikingly illuminated by lighting director Bruno Poet. Dave Malloy’s score builds to a dark crescendo only to shift gear abruptly to reveal the apparently everyday guises of these spooktacular sorceresses. Young reviewer Woody, peeps over a programme beneath a beanie brought to cover his eyes in case of emergencies, and lowers it a fraction at the jauntily upbeat mood change. A notebook is flung into my lap,’I don’t want to write a review, I just want to watch!’ hisses Frida. The Witches are among us, write Ed, Frida and Woody Gray.
I’m reminded of the time we went to see the film version of the Witches in the Scoop a couple of years earlier, just for 2 minutes, because that’s a darkly scary film even for a hardened older reviewer. Woody puts down the programme, his small hand relaxes in mine and we begin our journey to the Hotel Magnificent in Bournemouth, and what a truly magnificent evening we are embarking upon together.
Dahl’s dark fantasy, written in 1983, has come under fire in recent years with criticisms of misogyny. Publisher Puffin responded with rewrites to ‘ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today’, leading to cries of censorship from Margaret Atwood and our own Prime Minister. Dahl would no doubt have put a hex on his censors.
Nevertheless, a story that demonises women needs addressing and playwright Lucy Kirkwood and director Lyndsey Turner, along with composer Malloy, have created a rollicking rollercoaster of a musical that delights and entertains with wit and sophistication alongside knowing nods and winks to tropes and misogynistic stereotypes. Feisty cigar-smoking Norwegian Gran, played with gusto and warmth by Sally Ann Triplett, begins with a brief explanation of witchery in days gone by as a puritan mob lead away a woman who calls out, ’I’m not a witch, I just like being single!’ Gran is later hounded by a similar mob in the hotel who suspect her of being a witch until she manages a crafty evasion. Triplett is the true feminist role model within the musical, a misfit, refusing the conformity of traditional family life, or the coven, vulnerable yet tough-talking, delivering sharp one-liners whilst tenderly creating her own family of abandoned children.
It was apparent from the laughter-filled theatre that the audience were totally under the spell of all this malevolent magnificence. Our young reviewers even re-enacted their favourite moments in the interval.
On the night we went, Bertie Caplan was brilliant as plucky orphan Luke, conspiring to aid Gran in her mission to destroy the witches. Cian Eagle-Service sent howls of laughter through the aisles as Bruno, a sickly sweet charmer in pursuit of the ultimate sugar rush, whose life had been mapped out by his doting, status-fixated parents, Maggie Service and Ekow Quartey, only for their best laid plans to be curtailed by the witches’ delayed-action mouse-shrinker. The child actors’ voices and delivery were sensational. Hotel manager Mr Stringer, channelling Fawlty with a double mouse trouble, made full use of Lizzie Clachlan’s innovative set to hilarious effect.
Katherine Kingsley’s sultry narcissistic Grand High Witch hit all the right notes during the brilliant anti-child proclamation, ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’, while sitting alone in her hotel room, summoning the spirit of Greta Garbo. This deliciously seductive concoction of Kirkwood’s witty lyrics and Kingsley’s deadpan Nordic delivery hinted at the paradoxes at Dahl’s heart of darkness – Be wary, adults can be scary and there is no magic fairy.
‘Wow wow wow wow, generally Wow! And another wow for good luck!’ was Woody’s verdict at the end of the evening. Frida went straight home and dug out her copy of Dahl’s novel.
Catch this while you can or it’ll slip away like a motorised mouse.
Olivier Theatre, South Bank, SE1 until Saturday 27 January. Times: Mon – Sat 7pm; Wed & Sat matinees 1.30pm. Admission: £20 – £99.
Booking: www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
It is recommended for ages 8+. Reduced tickets for 16-25 year olds and £10 Friday Rush tickets are available online.
