Theatre review: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Lucy:
- Runs off with a suspicious stranger who offers her cake.
- Takes her siblings to Narnia in the full knowledge it'll put them and Mr Tumnus in danger.
- Is a PreCIOUs pRiNCEss.
Edmund:
- Runs off with a suspicious stranger who offers him Turkish Delight.
- Betrays his siblings only because he's enslaved by magic.
- Is a nasty little traitor who's probably going straight to Hell LOL.
Yes, it's one of the most famous stories of Christians living in the closet, C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe getting a new staging as the Bridge Theatre imports Sally Cookson's Leeds Playhouse production. And no, I'm not sure why I booked again to see a story I mainly grumble a lot about, except I probably quite like grumbling about it.

Theatre review: Peter Pan (National Theatre)

"Sorry Peter, Wendy can't play today, she's getting a hip replacement."

Last year I left Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre at the interval, and Peter Pan isn't a favourite story of mine, so the combination of the two didn't make this year's NT family Christmas show appeal too much. It was only the eccentric casting of Sophie Thompson as Captain Hook that made me book, so the fact that Thompson broke her wrist (the irony!) and had to withdraw from the production was a disappointment to say the least. She's been replaced by Anna Francolini, an excellent choice but, after her villain on the same stage in last year's wonder.land, perhaps not quite as surprising. Wendy (Madeleine Worrall) and her younger brothers John (Marc Antolin) and Michael (John Pfumojena) are left home alone when their parents go to a work party, and flying green child Peter Pan (Paul Hilton) gets into their bedroom. After Wendy helps him get his shadow back, Peter teaches the siblings how to fly, and leads them to Neverland.

Non-review: Jane Eyre

The regular readers of this blog will both recall that I don't technically like to say what I've written is a review, if I didn't see the whole show. Full disclosure, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was one of my A'Level English texts and I didn't like it then. So when an adaptation was announced at the National Theatre I was cautious, but booked anyway because the production - which originated in Bristol - had got good reviews and been praised as a revelatory take on the story. Director Sally Cookson and her cast have adapted and devised a highly physical telling of the story of Jane (Madeleine Worrall,) orphaned as a baby¹ when her parents catch a fatal case of interpretative dance. She's sent to an uncle, who also promptly pops his clogs, and after the requisite Wicked Stepmother behaviour from her aunt (Maggie Tagney) and cousins, she's shipped off to a charity school for unwanted girls.

Theatre review: Cinderella, a Fairytale (St James Theatre)

I'd not had any plans to see the St James Theatre's Christmas show, Cinderella, a Fairytale, but an enthusiastic recommendation from another blogger coupled with a decent last-minute discount deal saw me fill an empty evening with Sally Cookson's production, originally seen in Bristol. As well as avoiding the pantomime route, Cookson has also dropped the more familiar French version of the fairytale, devising her version with the cast principally from the Brothers Grimm's Aschenputtel, with elements from the Chinese version Yeh-Hsien as well. So Ella (Lisa Kerr) is a girl whose widowed father dies soon after he remarries, leaving her in the care of a wicked Step Mother; and there's still a Prince seeking a wife at the Palace ball. But instead of a fairy godmother there's a flock of magical birds to help Ella on her way, and when it comes down to fitting a lost slipper onto the girls of the kingdom, a couple of toes might have to be chopped off it helps nab a royal husband.