ANIMAL FARM

Stratford East

★★★★

“some truly striking moments of grand theatricality”

First things first, there is no farm. Not one that we would recognise anyway. Not the solace of a green field or a puffy cloud against an azure sky. This Animal Farm is a factory farm. A gutter scythes through the stage running red with the blood of slaughtered animals.

In director Amy Leach’s powerful and visually stunning interpretation of the George Orwell novella, the world is a succession of wire cages. These animals’ lives are bloody, mucky and constrained.

Set and costume designer Hayley Grindle dresses the animals in smeared vests and boiler suits, their designation (Sheep, Dog etc) tattooed or worn as patches – and where have we seen that before?

Old Major (Everal A Walsh) warns his friends they are sleepwalking towards their own destruction. He too is carried off to the abattoir but his final cry for rebellion finds purchase and revolution follows.

In many of the beautifully worked set pieces – brutal, sinewy ballets – the look and feel is that of a Kraftwerk gig, all soulless electronica, wire and concrete picked out in red and white with starkly lit bodies as silhouettes in strobe-like slow motion.

It is against this backdrop of warehouse columns and ominous shadows that the menagerie fights for scraps of dignity, putting the agro into agro-industrial complex.

“Hambush!’ coos gossipy pigeon and part-time narrator Milo (Em Prendergast), who adds necessary comic relief to a relentlessly grim tale.

Snowball (Robin Morrissey) and Napoleon (Tachia Newall) square off in a battle of ideals. Sneaky little Squealer (Tom Simper) sows the seeds of distrust and watches his manipulations infect the mind of bombastic Napoleon who succumbs to paranoia and corruption.

Tatty Hennessy’s muscular adaptation – accessible through seamless British Sign Language – is never less than ambitious in its manifesto and purpose.

A banner reads “All animals are created equal.” Over the course of two hours the declaration becomes first an ideal, then a plan, then a provocation, then an anathema and finally a fig leaf to justify oppression. Some animals are more equal than others, Orwell reminds us.

Caught up in the crossfire is a vibrant selection of characters each given their own personalities mercifully free of nursery rhyme cliché. Clover (Tianah Hodding) is frustratingly naïve, Boxer (Gabriel Paul) hard working, Minty (Farshid Rokey) malleable, Clara (Brydie Service) maternal, Blue (Joshua-Alexander Williams) vicious and so on.

It is a truism that Orwell’s response to the Soviet Union is perennially relevant, even in its 80th anniversary year (which accounts for a high crop yield of productions recently). As a result, there is an occasional over-elaboration of message infecting a script which, otherwise, demonstrates effectively how division is a design flaw of the human soul.

There is another box, which sits above the stage, drenched in luxury. First the greedy farmers look down on the animals and then the animals look down on the lesser animals, watching them writhe in their own muck, this time out of deluded sense of community and joint endeavour.

Inevitably, characters become less distinctive as the end nears but the impressive cast holds out for as long as it can before surrendering to the needs of allegory.

Meanwhile, in this committed and sure-footed production, the slow descent into bleakness is marked out by some truly striking moments of grand theatricality.

ANIMAL FARM

Stratford East

Reviewed on 13th February 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Kirsten McTernan

ANIMAL FARM

A Christmas Carol

Online via Jermyn Street Theatre and Guildford Shakespeare Company

Reviewed – 19th December 2020

★★★

“The spirit of Christmas present may have taken a holiday this year, and while this show doesn’t quite lure it back, it does remind us of our Christmases past”

On the day that Christmas was effectively cancelled, it is perhaps a natural reaction to want to seek refuge in some sort of seasonal escapism. ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ or ‘Bad Santa’. ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is another annual favourite. Something comfortingly familiar and predictable. Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” fits the bill perfectly. Written during a time when the British were re-evaluating themselves, its themes of transformation and redemption inspired, if not created, the aspects of Christmas we have grown to love; including family gatherings, festive food and drink, games and a communal generosity of spirit.

In the absence of that, the Guildford Shakespeare Company with Jermyn Street Theatre, are beaming their live, staged version of the story via Zoom, which allows a degree of audience participation. The technology, born of necessity back in March, still feels a little underdeveloped, but it does let the curtain rise on productions that would otherwise remain locked away in the dark.

Naylah Ahmed’s faithful adaptation pulls no surprises. We all know the story, which is its selling point, along with the two names in the cast – Penelope Keith and Brian Blessed who play the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present respectively. Keith displays her signature imperious disdain for the unreformed Scrooge with a deadpan, but slightly apologetic, sense of humour (“I am not a sir, sir!”), while Blessed’s distinctly unapologetic performance plays up to his own caricature. They are both a formidable and colourful presence. Jim Findley, as Ebenezer Scrooge, fails to react accordingly, and doesn’t seem to be too distraught that his night is disturbed by these uninvited and foreboding spirits.

Rallying round, though, are the three multi-rolling cast members who pick up the remaining characters. Robin Morrissey’s versatility leapfrogs from his Jacob Marley to Bob Cratchitt to Mr Fezziwig with ease, accompanied by the sparkly eyed Paula James as Mrs Cratchitt, Fezziwig and others. Paula James, along with Lucy Pearson, who has her own hamper full of characters, bring a lightness of touch to what is a fairly stolid and dependable narration.

Despite the commitment of the cast, they seem unsure as to who the audience is. Director Natasha Rickman seems to be steering them, perhaps against their will, towards a younger crowd. The sense of enjoyment is prevalent but at the expense of the magic and awe that this tale should inspire. The show features children from the Guildford Shakespeare Company’s drama clubs, in rotation, as the Cratchitt children, and it is a delight to see the relish with which the three young ensemble cast dive into their roles.

The spirit of Christmas present may have taken a holiday this year, and while this show doesn’t quite lure it back, it does remind us of our Christmases past and give us hope for those yet to come. But we want to toast the future with effervescence and this ‘Christmas Carol’ doesn’t have the sparkling warmth to uplift us fully. But ‘Humbug’ to that. The run is already sold out online so don’t listen to this old Scrooge.

ANIMAL FARM

Stratford East

★★★★

“some truly striking moments of grand theatricality”

ANIMAL FARM

Stratford East

Reviewed on 13th February 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Kirsten McTernan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

ANIMAL FARM

ANIMAL FARM

ANIMAL FARM

Online via Jermyn Street Theatre and Guildford Shakespeare Company

Reviewed – 19th December 2020

★★★

“The spirit of Christmas present may have taken a holiday this year, and while this show doesn’t quite lure it back, it does remind us of our Christmases past”

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Ciaran Walsh

A Christmas Carol

Online via Jermyn Street Theatre and Guildford Shakespeare Company until 27th December

Previously reviewed by Jonathan: