|
|
Fable brought to glorious life
Simon Webbe
as
the Big Bad Wolf put the frighteners on Mother Pig , played by and her
piglets Taofique Folarin (left) as Bar, Daniel Buckley
as
Q and Leanne Jones as Bee The 3 Little Pigs
Birmingham Town Hall
***** MUSICAL theatre veterans George Stiles
and Anthony Drewe have come up with another winner in The 3 Little Pigs
with West End values in a musical for kids. Most shows aimed at youngsters are either
extensions of the franchises of popular children’s TV cartoon series,
sometimes staging TV episodes on stage, or adaptations of popular
toddler books, safe with recognisable characters and a ready audience. But when Stiles and Drew were commissioned by
Singapore Repertory Company for The Three Little Pigs, they took a well
known fairytale/fable and gave it the West End musical treatment – quite
literally as that’s where it’s heading next month. We find the three pigs just about to leave home,
Bar the workout king who exercises everything but his brain, Bee, who is
an environmentally friendly green pig and Q, whose snout is never far
from a book. Taofique Folarin has
just finished playing Banzai in The
Lion King in the West End, and was Gary
Coleman in Avenue Q, and has a long West End CV, as does Leanne Jones as
Bee who made her professional debut as Tracy Turnblad in
Hairspray in
the West End where she won on Olivier award for best actress in a
Musical. Daniel Buckley is
another with West End experience and toured as Piggy in
Lord of the Flies
and Otto in Spring Awakening. The three, Bar, Bee, Q
– oh come on, keep up – are being encouraged to make their own way in
the world by their widowed mother played by Australian Alison Jiear who
had an Olivier nomination as best actress in a musical for her role as
Shawntel in Jerry Springer The Opera. The three little pigs
lost their father when he was converted to supper by the Big Bad Wolf,
bad of course being a relative term and he tells us that he is merely
misunderstood. Wolf is played by Simon Webbe, best
known
as a member of Blue, but he is another with West End experience, playing
Curtis Shank alongside Sheila Hancock and Whoopi Goldberg in
Sister Act The Musical
at The London Palladium.
He shows a fine voice hamming up the role of the
baddy with more wisecracks than menace while the script keeps to the
original children’s story from the early 19th century with the three
pigs building their own houses, one of straw, one of sticks and one of
bricks. They were all warned by bookworm Q and as sure as eggs is eggs
and bacon is . . . perhaps best we won't go down that path . . . anyhow,
when the big bad wolf comes calling looking for a pork take away, two
out of three building materials fail the huff and puff and blow your
house down tests. A simple enough story but it is given the West
End treatment with songs from Drewe and Stiles that would not seem out
of place in Drury Lane or Shaftsbury Avenue with lively, catchy music in
song and dance numbers which are slick and polished thanks to
choreographer Ewan Jones. Jason Denvir’s design deserves a mention with
fun, bum heavy, pig costumes and a sinister, skin-tight wolf outfit
giving character to the cast all in a setting making clever use of three
panels. The panels can be moved sideways to reveal mother pig’s house,
reversed to double up as hoardings for the three house building sites
behind, with plenty of official looking pig and wolf related safety and
warning notices, and then swivelled to reveal the three pig houses. The blowing down of the houses of straw and
sticks was done simply but most effectively as was the sad, or
otherwise, demise of the wolf, with a nice touch of regret from the pigs
who try to save hime from his unfortunate end. The wolf though, amid a strange mix of pantomime
boos and genuine cheers, came back to life for curtain calls and finale. The result is a cracking musical for children. It
has a potential problem in that the story is for the younger end of the
audience along with the likes of Goldilocks and The Three Bears,
another in this Drewe and Stiles series of trios, as is The Three
Billy Goats Gruff, while the style and music is perhaps at the
older end of the fairy tale age range in terms of sophistication and
what younger audience members are used to - age advice is three and
upwards But that hardly matters. The story is so clearly
and well told with no patronising of younger audience members and the
pace so good and music so lively that toddlers and even mums and dads
were taking an interest and enjoying it. This is a West End musical for
kids, a real quality production, with a simple, easy to relate
storyline, jokes for young and old, a strong cast, clever set, with good
songs and catchy music . . . and you can’t ask for much more than that. I am a great believer that children’s theatre is
the recruiting office for future theatregoers and shows like this will
have youngsters wanting to come back for more. To Sunday, 2 August Roger Clarke
30-07-15
|
|
Contents page Town Hall Reviews A-Z Reviews by Theatre Tweet |
|
|