★★★★

“Gather up your kids and have a good time at The Creakers!”

The Creakers is a musical version of Tom Fletcher’s much loved children’s book of the same name. It’s about a group of kids who have to rescue their parents from a sinister world lurking below their beds. It’s a refreshing change from all the overly familiar panto fare on offer on London stages at the moment. As musical adaptations go, however, The Creakers fails to capture the magic of its original material. That’s not because it isn’t a talented production at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s South Bank. But this version is a cautionary tale in how difficult it can be to adapt a brilliant story in book form, for the stage.

Set in Whiffington, a town with a waste disposal problem as its name suggests, The Creakers tells us about Lucy, a girl who is “different” though we are never told exactly how. Her single Dad is also the town’s rubbish collector, which adds to her problem of social acceptability. Most of the first act of the musical is about establishing the characters in the story, with frequent references to the social pecking order. There’s also a scandal brewing about the rubbish. The Mayor of Whiffington has decided to get rid of the overflowing rubbish by dumping it in the ocean. This is the inciting incident that sets the main story of The Creakers in motion. It turns out that a bunch of mysterious creatures called the Creakers depend on that rubbish for their food, building supplies, and even for their creativity. At night the Creakers emerge from under children’s beds, and feast on the mess and debris that kids (and their parents) have left lying around. Deprived of their sustenance, the Creakers take revenge by kidnapping the parents of Whiffington. Lucy and the kids have to figure out how to get them back.

It’s a good story, and it plays on childhood fears that everyone, child and adult alike, can identify with. The sustainability theme in the accumulating rubbish is a bit trickier, but from a staging perspective, it gives an imaginative set designer and costume designer lots to work with. Andrew Exeter and Ryan Dawson Laight take full advantage. But the rubbish is also a distraction from the main action. That’s Lucy’s goal of extracting the parents from the underground world of Woleb. (Yes, I figured it out.) And it takes the whole of the first act of The Creakers to get to the point where we finally meet these wonderful creatures, and the show takes off.

Despite the slow moving first act, and energetic songs that don’t always advance the action, The Creakers will succeed in winning you over by the end. The performers give their all to the many different roles they are called on to play, and that includes manipulating the puppet Creakers (designed by Lyndie Wright who knows everything there is to know about puppets.) Tom Jackson Greaves manages both the direction and choreography with flair in a space that is really a concert hall, and not a theatre. The small band produces a big sound with the superior acoustics of the QEH, and it was a treat to actually see them in the second act. Lucy (Eloise Davies) and her friends Ella (Iona Fraser) and Norman (Ally Kennard) are the main movers and shakers in the show but there’s a wealth of talent to see in minor roles all undertaken by a seamless ensemble.

If you’re wondering whether you can risk taking your child to a show that deals in accumulating rubbish and monsters lurking under the bed, have no fear. There’s a guaranteed happy ending. And no one will be surprised to discover that the Creakers are, in fact, the Save the Planet warriors we have been waiting for. As one satisfied customer remarked “I won’t have a nightmare tonight—I’ll have a funmare!” So ignore all the dramaturgical quibbling above. Gather up your kids and have a good time at The Creakers!

HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

★★★★

“Nothing seems out of place in Dominic Cooke’s staging of this revival”

By interval, while slowly making my way through the bottleneck towards the bar, I’m feeling a bit like the child from ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ folk tale. Only the joke is on me, apparently, rather than the other way round. It takes the second act to make me realise this, and my puzzled expression turns to one of realisation, all the while a smile reluctantly spreading across my face. The belated appreciation is inadvertently symptomatic of a musical that is, after all, fundamentally about second chances.

You have to ignore the flimsy plot to get to its heart. On the surface the story follows the celebrated matchmaker, Dolly Levi, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly half-millionaire Horace Vandergelder. It soon becomes clear, though, that Dolly intends to marry Horace herself. We think it’s all about the money, but as the twists unravel, we discover the true threads of the tale. Love is in the air, ultimately, conquering feelings of grief and bereavement as it sweeps through the auditorium in waves of feelgood farce. In the title role, Imelda Staunton gives a fantastically understated performance as she slowly lets go of her late husband’s ghost to find her way back to where she belongs.

Based on Thornton Wilder’s 1930s ‘The Matchmaker’, it premiered in 1963; so there is always the danger that today’s audiences will find it outdated and out of style. Yet it conveys a bygone age that we are willing to be transported back to. Escapism is the key. Rae Smith’s sumptuous sets mix turn of the century realism with animated backdrops; rickety trolleybuses and sandstone buildings with blue skies – into which, at one point, a full-size steam train billows out clouds of steam. Smith’s costumes match the opulence of the production, particularly during the signature scene in which Dolly descends the famous staircase of the Harmonia Gardens restaurant. The title number of ‘Hello Dolly’ builds slowly towards its ovation-grabbing finale. Dancing waiters and chefs epitomise Bill Deamer’s extravagant and flawless choreography. Nothing seems out of place in Dominic Cooke’s staging of this revival, except for a few lines of Michael Stewart’s book. Yet the execution is faultless, and Jerry Herman’s music and lyrics are given full flight, buoyed up by the twenty strong orchestra down in the pit.

Staunton, to her credit, never steals the show in what is pretty much an ensemble piece (that also boasts one of the largest ensembles in London – it has more swings than a holiday camp playground). Andy Nyman’s Horace Vandergelder is a gently mocking Scrooge, extending his derision to himself as much as anyone else. His rebellious employees, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker (respectively Harry Hepple and the underused Tyrone Huntley) make a fine comedy double act that borders on cliché but thankfully just stops short. The other star turn comes courtesy of Jenna Russell’s Irene Molloy, the milliner who craves to swap her hat shop for a love nest yet is more than twice shy having been bitten by grief too many times.

The songs are not so much old fashioned as old school. Refreshingly nostalgic and timeless. Russell delivers one of the highlights; ‘Ribbons Down My Back’ with an aching hunger while some of the other rousing numbers fill us with joy. Staunton, of course, makes ‘Hello Dolly’ (the song and the show) her own, betraying a unique sense of self-doubt within her layered character. She likes to be in control of everybody’s lives, including her own, but her femininity is never victim to her feminism. There is strength and vulnerability. But also a glorious sense of fun. “It’s no use arguing – I have made up your mind” Dolly says to the redemptive Vandergelder.

There is no arguing with the success of this show either, or the ovation it received. Admittedly the first act drifts a bit, but by curtain call it is well and truly ‘back where it belongs’.

THE CREAKERS

Queen Elizabeth Hall

★★★★

“Gather up your kids and have a good time at The Creakers!”

THE CREAKERS

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Reviewed on 27th December 2024

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Pamela Raith

Recently reviewed at Southbank venues:

THE CREAKERS

THE CREAKERS

THE CREAKERS

HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

★★★★

“Nothing seems out of place in Dominic Cooke’s staging of this revival”

HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

Reviewed on 18th July 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

More reviews from Jonathan:

HELLO, DOLLY!

HELLO, DOLLY!