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

Previously reviewed at this venue:

PINOCCHIO | ★★★★ | November 2024

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

ANIMAL FARM

★★★★

“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.

Tag Archives: Theatre Royal Stratford East

ANIMAL FARM

★★★★

Stratford East

ANIMAL FARM

Stratford East

★★★★

“some truly striking moments of grand theatricality”

ANIMAL FARM