Issue 25/26, 2010
Prompt Corner 
Once again, there was a rationale to the division of productions into Christmas and non-Christmas categories in this bumper-sized issue, but it was largely in order to keep the layout files of more or less equal size. There can be no other justification for, for instance, counting Marsha Norman's adaptation of The Secret Garden as a Christmas show but putting Garry Lyons' musical version on the "normal" pages. Apologies for all consequent confusion. As usual, also, we have reprinted the coverage only of Christmas productions which received two or more reviews; if we were to include everything that was written about at all, at all, there would have been no end to this issue.
Irony
I may have overlooked it, but I did not see this year the normally guaranteed single national review of the Courtyard Theatre, Hereford's pantomime from its neighbour Quentin Letts... but then, also missing this year was his equally traditional j''accuse against the National Theatre of staging pro-atheistical Christmas fare... which is odd, because, in many ways, Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings is less concerned with commenting approvingly on virtue and condemning vice (which surely are virtue and vice whether in a humanistic or a theistical context) than past productions he has inveighed against such as Coram Boy, Nation and of course His Dark Materials.
Most telling irony of the season was undoubtedly the timing of the press performance of the RSC's musical version of Matilda. Roald Dahl's children's book rightly extols the joy and value of knowledge for its own sake. It was a mordant coincidence that the RSC's musical adaptation of it should open on the afternoon that MPs voted for university funding changes which will entirely instrumentalise higher education provision. There's even a moment in the show which can be interpreted as obliquely satirising the burden of student loans. And, with Matilda's neglectful father and mother respectively glued to the TV and fixated upon ballroom dancing glory, the brainless modern pop-culture ideal of media-talent success is not far from adapter Dennis Kelly's sights either.
Overflows
This makes the show sound like a moralising fable; Dahl's stories are somewhat didactic, true, but the lesson is always firmly embedded in enjoyment and excitement. The same is true of Kelly's script and Matthew Warchus's production; indeed, it overflows the bounds of the show proper, with Paul Kaye as Matilda's father delivering an interval number about the joys of telly. It pains me just a little to say how good Tim Minchin's songs are: I've never warmed to him as a comedy singer-songwriter, but he really delivers here. Most of the numbers are packed with word-play (in the opening minutes alone we hear "miracle" rhymed with "umbilical", and Matilda's mother complains in the obstetric ward about being "dressed in hospital cotton/ With a smarty front bottom"), but the sentimental vein of the story is also expertly catered for; the beautiful Act Two opener "When I Grow Up" will surely be a crossover hit for some saucer-eyed moppet.
The youngsters in the cast are one part winsome to two parts impish: at the performance I saw, Kerry Ingram's petite Matilda gradually found her strength, James Beesley revelled in the world's biggest burp and Misty May Tindall began what may be a long career in scene-stealing. Sometimes they even managed to divert attention from Bertie Carvel, who seems to be specialising in urbane grotesques and here appears in fearsome yet hilarious drag as tyrannical headmistress and hammer-throwing champion Miss Trunchbull. When the Russian mafia turn up as a final threat, Kelly even squeezes in a linguistic gag on the "da" of "Matilda". You see, knowledge is both useful and wonderful in itself, not to say fun. Ministers, please note. (I can't resist returning to the subject, simply to share a poster which appeared during the student protest occupation of Exeter University: alluding to education secretary Michael Gove and a 1980 single by Joy Division, it gloomily foretold "Gove Will Tear Us Apart".)
Extreme
There's usually a feeling amongst reviewers in December that, with all the pantomimes and various other seasonal entertainments, we're simply putting in time until the New Year brings a thickening schedule of proper theatrical work. Yet the weeks covered by this issue provided me at least with the extreme experiences of my year. The 1927 company's wonderful The Animals And Children Took ToThe Streets was one of only three five-star reviews I wrote in 2010, and the only one to come out of left field; conversely, Peter Pan at the New Wimbledon became the first play I ever rated with no stars at all, with the extraordinary exception of that notorious Edinburgh Fringe production in 2008 that took to physically persecuting a colleague and me after the performances. I was frankly glad to flee several hundred miles away from Wimbledon and David Hasselhoff's performance as Captain Hook, until, on stage in front of me at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin as part of that city's mammoth New Year celebrations, who should I see belting out his greatest hit but that self-same Hasselhoff? It would seem that I can run but I can't hide... and frankly, I can't run more than a few steps either.
Finally, a reminder that the next issue will also be a double number covering the first four weeks of January, and will be available in time to make an ideal Valentine's gift for the theatre-lover in your life...
Ian Shuttleworth ! ian@theatrerecord.com
Reviewed in Issue 25/26, 2010 (London)
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Where published play scripts can be purchased from Amazon.co.uk 
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Production |
Venue |
Opened |
Closed |
Page |
| ALICE IN WONDERLAND Adaptation by Tim Kane from Lewis Carroll | Little Angel | 27 Nov | 30 Jan | 1404 |
| ANANSI: AN AFRICAN FAIRY TALE New adaptation by Lisa Cagnacci | Southwark Playhouse | 3 Dec | 8 Jan | 1404 |
| THE ANIMALS AND CHILDREN TOOK TO THE STREETS New play by Suzanne Andrade (1927) | BAC | 9 Dec | 8 Jan | 1388 |
| ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Revival of play by Sakespeare (RSC) | Roundhouse | 10 Dec | 30 Dec | 1393 |
| BAGPUSS – LIVE ON STAGE New adaptation by Jonathan Lloyd from TV programme by Oliver Postgate | Soho | 11 Dec | 9 Jan | 1405 |
| BEA New play by Mick Gordon (On Theatre) | Soho | 7 Dec | 8 Jan | 1378 |
| BEASTS AND BEAUTIES Revival of adaptation by Carol Anne Duffy | Hampstead | 15 Dec | 31 Dec | 1406 |
| BEAUTY AND THE BEAST New version by Katie Mitchell and Lucy Kirkwood (NT) | Cottesloe | 1 Dec | 4 Jan | 1408 |
| BEAUTY AND THE BEAST New version by Phil Porter | Unicorn SE1 | 9 Dec | 23 Jan | 1410 |
| CART MACABRE New piece by Living Structures | Old Vic Tunnels | 7 Dec | 22 Dec | 1375 |
| A CHRISTMAS CAROL Return of adaptation by Joanna Volinska from Charles Dickens (Horla) | Trafalgar Studio 2 | 21 Dec | 8 Jan | 1411 |
| DECLINE AND FALL New adaptation by Henry Filloux-Bennett from novel by Evelyn Waugh | Old Red Lion | 3 Dec | 29 Jan | 1392 |
| DICK WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT New pantomime by Joel Horwood and Morgan Lloyd Malcolm | Lyric Hammersmith | 3 Dec | 8 Jan | 1412 |
| A FLEA IN HER EAR Revival of John Mortimer version of play by Georges Feydeau | Old Vic | 14 Dec | 5 Mar | 1395 |
| FLYBOY IS ALONE AGAIN THIS CHRISTMAS New piece by Matthew Robins | Pit | 16 Dec | 2 Jan | 1413 |
| GEORGE'S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE Revival of David Wood adap. from Roald Dahl (Birmingham Stage Co) | Bloomsbury | 14 Dec | 22 Jan | 1414 |
| GET SANTA! New play by Anthony Neilson | Royal Court | 13 Dec | 15 Jan | 1415 |
| THE GRUFFALO return of musical adaptation from book by Julia Donaldson / Axel Scheffler (Tall Stories) | Garrick | 24 Nov | 16 Jan | 1417 |
| HANSEL AND GRETEL: A WONDER TALE Revival of Carl Grose adaptation (Kneehigh) | Queen Elizabeth Hall | 16 Dec | 2 Jan | 1418 |
| JACK AND THE BEANSTALK Revival of pantomime by Susie McKenna | Hackney Empire | 2 Dec | 9 Jan | 1419 |
| JUST SO! Revival of the musical by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, from stories by Rudyard Kipling | Tabard | 2 Dec | 9 Jan | 1403 |
| KING LEAR Revival of play by Shakespeare | Donmar Warehouse | 7 Dec | 5 Feb | 1379 |
| LOVE STORY New musical by Howard Goodall from screenplay by Erich Segal | Duchess | 6 Dec | 1373 | |
| ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Revival of musical by Cy Coleman | Union SE1 | 16 Dec | 15 Jan | 1401 |
| ONCE BITTEN Revival of play by Alfred Delacour & Alfred Hennequin | Orange Tree | 17 Dec | 5 Feb | 1376 |
| PEPA PIG’S PARTY New piece by Richard Lewis based on the television programme | Criterion | 2 Dec | 2 Jan | 1391 |
| PETER PAN Pantomime adaptation by Eric Potts | New Wimbledon | 16 Dec | 16 Jan | 1421 |
| POTTED PANTO New show by Dan Clarkson, Jefferson Turner, Richard Hurst | Vaudeville | 14 Dec | 9 Jan | 1422 |
| RED RIDING HOOD Pantomime by Trish Cooke and Robert Hyman | T R Stratford E15 | 15 Dec | 22 Jan | 1423 |
| SALAD DAYS Revival of musical by Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds | Riverside | 9 Dec | 6 Feb | 1390 |
| SEASON'S GREETINGS Revival of play by Alan Ayckbourn (NT) | Lyttelton | 8 Dec | 1424 | |
| SINCERELY NOËL Adapted from the poetry and music of Noël Coward | Riverside | 9 Dec | 23 Dec | 1387 |
| STRIKING 12 New musical adaptation from The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen | Waterloo East | 9 Dec | 2 Jan | 1394 |
| THE THREE MUSKETEERS New musical by George Stiles / Peter Raby / Francis Matthews | Rose, Kingston | 3 Dec | 2 Jan | 1428 |
| WILTON'S VINTAGE CHRISTMAS Victorian variety show | Wilton's Music Hall | 7 Dec | 18 Dec | 1429 |
| THE WINTER'S TALE Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC) | Roundhouse | 16 Dec | 1 Jan | 1402 |
