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Katy Owen as Lily with the star of the show, cat, Tips. Picture: Steve Tanner 946 The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips
Birmingham Rep
***** EVERY so often along comes a production
that not only ticks all the boxes but chucks in a few new ones and ticks
those as well. The result is a children’s book adapted into a
piece of magical theatre for all ages. It is never too cerebrally
dramatic or wordy, nor made patronisingly simple for children, nor is it
too babyish for adults; this is Everyman theatre. Director Emma Rice, artistic director of
Shakespeare’s Globe and author Michael Morpurgo, have turned Morpurgo’s
children’s book into musical theatre with Cornwall company Kneehigh. It is set around the infamous Operation Tiger in
April 1944 when a combination of bad planning, bad decisions, bad
co-ordination and bad communications saw 946 US servicemen killed in a
rehearsal for D-Day – many by friendly fire. The play is set in Slapton Sands, in Devon, on
the farm where Lily Tregenza lives with her mum and grandfather; her
father is away fighting in the desert. Into that bucolic haven we have
thrust the war’s refugees; a Jewish French teacher who fled to England
from Normandy to evade the Nazis; her Jewish husband has joined the
Merchant Navy where he was to die, torpedoed in an Atlantic convoy. We have Barry, an evacuee from London escaping
the blitz, where his mum still drives a bus. His father died at Dunkirk.
Then come the GIs, in the form of two black soldiers, Adolpus and Harry
who had the double novelty of first being American and then black, both
as common as Martians in wartime Devon. Little is made of racial conflict, which was far
worse in the US forces than in the civilian population, except when the
pair turn up at the farm for Thanksgiving, a time for families, laden
with base PX store goodies stating the Tregenzas are the only people to
treat them like family Then the Tregenzas and the entire village, 3,000
people, are forced to move so Slapton Sands can become a rehearsal site
for D-day. Suddenly everyone is a refugee, a
And all the while there is Tips, Lily’s adored
cat whose independence means she is missing much of the time and when
everyone leaves the farm and village to become a battleground behind
barbed wire, Tips stays, creating a bond between Lily, Aldolphus and
Harry.
The play starts, with a
hit of things to come, with a slow and easy version of John Denver’s
Leaving on a Jet Plane
from the Blues man, the excellent Adebayo
Bolaji and the brilliant band. The band being a moveable feast as most
characters ended up playing an instrument at some point and we even had
a recorder ensemble and a beer bottle band. Musical director and multi-instrumentalist Pat
Moran did stand out though playing an orchestra’s worth of instruments
all on his own along with musician Seamas Carey. Grandad, living on memories, is dying and when he
goes, his widow, Lily, now of mature years, sets off on an adventure
leaving grandson Boowie to read her diary – which takes us back to the
war years. Booie, played by Adam Sopp becomes evacuee Barry,
while Grandma, played by Mike Shepherd, becomes the young Lily’s
grandfather which would really have left Oedipus confused, while Lily’s
mum is played with homely charm by Kyla Goodey. Doubling up is all par for the course though with
Chris Jared expiring as Grandad only to find a new lease of a past life
as the Vicar and Lily’s dad. Then Ewan Wardrop is
very funny as the upper-class twit Lord Something-or-other, who seems to
have borrowed a horse from Spamalot,
and reappears as Barry’s blousy, OTT mum. Katy Owen is wonderful as Lily, a bolshie, angry,
12-year-old who speaks her mind, often with a knee in the groin for
emphasis. She manages some glorious facial expressions and physical
comedy in a stand-out performance. Emma Darlow gives us a serious and sad
‘Bloomers’, Madame Bounine, and you feel for her as she tells her story
as you do for Ncuti Gatwa, convincing as Adolphus, Adi, as he recounts
the loss of his friend. Nandi Bhebhe does not say a lot as Harry but has
a lovely voice and is also responsible for the star of the show, Tips
the cat, one of many puppets and models utilised for a flock of sheep to
a rather cute sheepdog, a stringed and rodded cast all directed by Sarah
Wright. It all takes part on a glorious set from Lez
Brotherston, Matthew Bourne’s go-to designer. It gives us a wartime look
with a huge propeller fronting a second, raised level for the band in
what looks like a hangar at the rear but an open space at the front,
which doubles as fields, farm, school and sitting room. It is a simple
design which seems much busier and complex than it actually is.
One clever touch is a collection of tin baths at
the front of the stage. I have always said that the greatest special
effect is imagination and using model landing craft and destroyers,
along with German E-boats in the tin baths, with bangs and flashing
lights, a few splashes and flames gives the mind all the props it needs
to create its own scenes of the horrors of battle. In fact the who production feeds the imagination
with suggestions of scenery and props, a Triumph Bonneville limited to a
headlamp and handlebars, for example, and there is nothing wrong with
that. The mind needs exercise just like everything else. It is a wonderful piece of theatre which works on
all levels. Two small children, near me, sat enthralled from beginning
to end and their smiles and eyes wide with wonder at the end said more
than I ever could. If this was their first venture into grown up theatre
it was a magic they would always remember. Adolphus Tips had told its
tale and captured them for life. To 15-10-16 Roger Clarke 10-11-16
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migrant
of war forced from their homes, giving, if nothing else, pause for
thought at what is happing, albeit on a hugely larger scale, in the
modern world.