★★★★

“an eye-popping, feel-good extravaganza”

Theatre Royal Stratford East leads its audience on a magical mystery tour with its vibrant retelling of the Pinocchio story, blessed with neon colours, funky beats – and a fairy to die for.

Sizzling with energy and dressed like an atompunk seaside arcade, this classic tale of the wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy has zip and a dazzling bubblegum aesthetic thanks to set and costume designer Stewart J Charlesworth, who deserves to take the applause alongside the admirable cast.

The story, under the direction of Omar F Okai, draws directly from Italian writer Carlo Collodi’s 1883 classic.

Pinocchio, a mischievous wooden puppet carved by the kind-hearted Geppetto, comes to life. He is impulsive and rebellious, leading him into a series of misadventures. He runs away, skipping school to attend a puppet show. He is soon swindled by the deceitful Sly Fox and Miss Cat, who convince him to gamble away his money.

He joins a group of troublemakers who take him to Playland where he is transformed into a donkey and sold to a circus. After a series of humiliations, Pinocchio is thrown into the sea and swallowed by a shark. Who Pinocchio meets inside the shark finally persuades the puppet to change his ways.

Playland, a chicken farm, a shark’s belly, a workshop, a dark circus – what a confection of opportunities for set design, lighting, choreography and fun.

Everything relies on the winning power and prowess of Pinocchio and Dylan Collymore delivers, with disco moves, soulful tones and a cheeky presence. The music, courtesy of Trish Cooke and Robert Hyman, calls on an eclectic range of global styles and puts everyone through their paces.

The cast is gleeful and charming. Special mention to crowd pleasers Nicole Louise Lewis as Krik Krak (“I say Krik, you say Krak”) and jolly jack of all trades Tok Morakinyo who turns up all over the place in different guises.

Saving the best till last though, cutting through the sugar-rush flim-flam is veteran Michael Bertenshaw as the Blue Rinse Fairy who has sharpened his vaudeville stylings and dry badinage into a formidable comic weapon. With his sardonic eye rolls and wry world weariness, his exasperation might go over the heads of the little ones, but he speaks directly to the grown-ups.

While the exuberant cast sweat buckets in elaborate street-smart dance routines, laconic Bertenshaw merely needs to deadpan to the stalls to have us all in hysterics.

Minor quibbles: the story is picaresque and episodic so it’s easy to lose track of progress; and the evil pair of Fox and Cat could indulge in more obvious crowd-riling villainy – giving everyone more opportunities to boo. Still, the dance numbers landed, the storytelling was upbeat, and everyone left the theatre cheerfully singing a refrain about believing in themselves. Job done.

What an eye-popping, feel-good extravaganza.

THE KING’S SPEECH at the Watermill Theatre

★★★★

“Peter Sandys-Clarke gives an excellent performance as the ‘dear, dear man’ held in a vocal prison by his childhood trauma.”

Playwright David Seidler (1937–2024) developed a stammer at the age of three as his family travelled from the UK to the US in the early years of World War II. One of three ships in their convoy was destroyed by German U-Boats. Many kinds of speech therapy failed him until at the age of 16, and in a frustrated rage he shouted out the F-word.

Out of this traumatic experience came a playwright, and also his most memorable work, the screenplay for the film The King’s Speech, which is based on a true story. But Seidler’s wife said ‘why don’t you write it as a play?’, realising that the spatial limitations of theatre would enable it to focus on the key relationship at the heart of the piece. The 2010 film, starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, was produced to great acclaim and won four Academy Awards. In 2012 the play opened in Guildford before touring the world in nine different languages.

The delightfully intimate Watermill Theatre is The Stage’s Theatre of the Year and has a reputation for unique shows which last long in the memory. This revival brilliantly embodies that tradition.

Directed by former Almeida resident director Emma Butler with insightful lighting by Ryan Day, and striking costume and set design by Bretta Gerecke, the play sheds new light on a much-loved and deeply poignant story.

The first act moves rapidly with a lot of plot to cover and many brief scenes, with a greater and more compelling focus after the interval.

If you have seen the film, you will recall that the relationship between the future King George VI (Peter Sandys-Clarke) and his wayward speech therapist Lionel Logue (Arthur Hughes) is the nub of the story. ‘Bertie’ the monarch-to-be is inventively dressed as ‘a thing of threads and patches’ – in a half-made suit that symbolises his status as a future king and as a stutterer ‘trapped in a broken body over which he has no control’. This symbolism is echoed in the set which consists largely of a disordered arc of swirling timber.

Peter Sandys-Clarke gives an excellent performance as the ‘dear, dear man’ held in a vocal prison by his childhood trauma. We see him fail to speak coherently at Wembley Stadium and the abuse to which he is subjected by his family. Against a backdrop of great affairs of state, including the death of a king and the abdication of another, an intimate and touching story of deepening friendship is played out between a plain-speaking Aussie and a very believably austere royal. Arthur Hughes shines as the genial and irreverent therapist, his performance somehow made all the more poignant by his own slight physical disability.

Aamira Challenger gives an elegantly restrained performance as the Princess Elizabeth and Jim Kitson makes the most of some excellent lines as a bluff and bustling Winston Churchill and King George V.

Rosa Hesmondhalgh (Myrtle Logue/Wallis Simpson) is endearing as an Australian shopgirl who gets invited to sit with the royals at a coronation. Christopher Naylor made the most of his role as the scheming Archbishop, Cosmo Lang and cricket sweater wearing Stephen Rahman-Hughes gives a new take on David, the Duke of Windsor who so memorably stood down from the throne as he could not uphold it without ‘the help and support of the woman I love’.

Tag Archives: BRETTA GERECKE

PINOCCHIO

★★★★

Theatre Royal Stratford East

PINOCCHIO at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

★★★★

“an eye-popping, feel-good extravaganza”

PINOCCHIO at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

Reviewed on 30th November 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Craig Fuller

Previously reviewed at this venue:

WONDER BOY | ★★★★ | October 2024

ABIGAIL’S PARTY | ★★★★ | September 2024

NOW, I SEE | ★★★★ | May 2024

CHEEKY LITTLE BROWN | ★★★½ | April 2024

THE BIG LIFE | ★★★★★ | February 2024

BEAUTIFUL THING | ★★★★★ | September 2023

PINOCCHIO

PINOCCHIO

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

THE KING’S SPEECH

★★★★

Watermill Theatre

THE KING’S SPEECH at the Watermill Theatre

★★★★

“Peter Sandys-Clarke gives an excellent performance as the ‘dear, dear man’ held in a vocal prison by his childhood trauma.”