★★★

“There are some lovely moments in this one woman show, but it doesn’t quite get below the surface of the subject matter”

This endearing exploration of a teenage football fan’s identity ultimately feels a little toothless.

Lizzie is an English Coventry supporter. But she’s also half Scottish, and half Indian, and a 13-year-old girl in a very white town in 1996. These parts of her identity clash together, as she struggles to find her place as an atypical football fan.

The premise is clear but the story goes exactly the way you’d expect. Hannah Kumari’s script is littered with 1990s references, from CK1 perfume to a dance number from the U.K.’s ‘96 Eurovision entry. It’s grounded in its world, but the decision to set it in this era feels a little random and does nothing to avoid inevitable Bend it Like Beckham comparisons.

Nikhita Lesler’s performance is charming, but its peppy naivety leaves little room for the introspection which might bring more depth and complexity to the show. There is a warmth to her performance though, which sets the tone and means the play isn’t overwhelmingly bleak. Equally, it makes it feel tame.

This is amplified by Max Lindsay’s direction which lacks any pause for reflection. There’s a gut punching revelation, which isn’t quite earned in the general tone up until then and so somehow feels like a cheap reveal. The range of characters, and caricatures, is deftly handled, and there are some witty moments as Lizzie struggles around other people in her life. There are also some genuinely moving moments, but the strongest are when Lizzie interacts with others, rather than her slightly forced audience asides.

The play is produced by FSA and Fans for Diversity which explains why there are moments that feel like an advert for watching football. There’s a nod to the future, to 2024 when football culture (especially women’s football culture) has changed. I would’ve been more interested to see a contemporary take on this story and look at how much it really has changed for this character to go to football games, given the game is still so interlinked with racism and nationalism.

There are some lovely moments in this one woman show, but it doesn’t quite get below the surface of the subject matter. It’s sweet, and charming, but a little empty.

THE SECRET GARDEN at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

★★★

“With a strong ensemble cast directed tightly by Anna Himali Howard the first act was a delight”

A normal child would cry but Mary Lennox is not a “normal child” as we discover in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel, The Secret Garden, in this new stage version by Holly Robinson and Anna Himali Howard.

1903 during the British Raj, is where we meet the 10-year-old Mary, ignored by her glittering parents; as her Indian mother and British army father party hard, living their colonial life – and literally dying overnight as they chose to ignore the “unimportant” servants dying of the cholera spreading through their house.

The orphaned Mary is unceremoniously shipped to England to live in her uncle’s stately home on the Yorkshire Moors. A broken-hearted house that is full of secrets, which the staff are not very good at keeping hidden from the tenacious and contrary Mary.

Left to make her own entertainment, Mary discovers a secret garden with the help of a friendly robin. Overgrown and unloved for years, it is a forbidden garden. And so, begins the enduring tale of broken hearts healed through nature as all learn how, with the right tending and care, they can bloom and be loved, like the garden.

In what should have been the perfect setting for The Secret Garden, in the open air with nature all around, the production does not deliver on the expected magic as the secret garden grows and thrives – and does not use the natural setting.

The set designed by Leslie Travers starts off so beautifully but by the time the clunky dark earth filled empty flower beds on squeaking iron wheels are pushed onstage; and seeing the not-disabled friendly secret door into the garden fail to fit Colin and their wheelchair through it, making the character + chair go through the “wall”, rather than go through the actual secret door into the secret garden, the magic has disappeared. The Indian paper chains and flowers were pretty but not enough to be magical, and the lovely Indian inspired powder paint thrown onto the back of the set was too little and too late in the show – and could not be seen by most of the audience.

There is magic in the creation of the robin played beautifully by Sharan Phull from the moment she pops up on top of the very high garden wall and charms with Indian song and dance, with a hennaed red breast on each of her hands, used as the sweet robin flittering from branch to branch. And for me, true open air theatre magic happened as a real robin decided to watch stage left on the speaker!

Other puppetry was made from transforming a black shawl into a crow, a fur stole into a grey squirrel and a jumper to a fox, lovingly played by the cast.

Richard Clews as the old loyal gardener Ben Weatherstaff and Amanda Hadingue as Mrs Medlock, in this production, a not quite so formidable housekeeper, are both classic perfect performances. Molly Hewitt-Richards as Martha has laugh out loud moments of natural comedy in her performance. And the word moor, pronounced “moo-er” by all three with their strong Yorkshire accent, is used to amusing effect throughout.

With a strong ensemble cast directed tightly by Anna Himali Howard the first act was a delight.

But the second act rambled by bringing in to play new storylines including a new love development between Colin and Dicken; and an AWOL aunt Padma (sister to both Mary and Colin’s dead mothers) joining the children in the secret garden, which again somewhat breaks the spell of who enters the garden to help everything grow.

There was a tacit point to introducing this new character, as the three Indian sisters had clearly chosen different paths, two by marrying rich Englishmen as both Mary and Colin’s dead mothers had; or fighting against the British Raj as Aunt Padma (Archana Ramaswamy) appears to have done.

This production attempts to show harsh differences between upper and lower classes, a hard call to mix into The Secret Garden. Colin (Theo Angel) must come to terms with the realisation that he will never walk and will always be in a wheelchair. So how could his disabled father Lord Craven (Jack Humphrey) ever love him, as his father is only interested in searching the world to find a cure for his son? Colin’s uncle Dr Craven (George Fletcher) also has a disability – the upper classes hide away disability. And then there is happy Dicken (Brydie Service) who uses a walking stick, yet everyone loves him, and he is called magical….

The script focuses on all the various characters’ disabilities – and the denouement of this production is that it is alright “not to be perfect” – but ultimately it is the parents who are to blame, depending on how they treat disabilities and differences when their offspring are young. Perfectly Harsh.

The star of the night is Hannah Khalique-Frown as Mary Lennox, playing this complex child with complete believability, rarely seen when an adult plays a 10-year-old. And by the end of The Secret Garden, you believe that her Mary cries real tears, as any loved normal child would.

ENG-ER-LAND at the King’s Head Theatre

★★★

“There are some lovely moments in this one woman show, but it doesn’t quite get below the surface of the subject matter”

ENG-ER-LAND at the King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 31st July 2024

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Jack Jeffreys

Previously reviewed at this venue:

ENG-ER-LAND

ENG-ER-LAND

THE SECRET GARDEN at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

★★★

“With a strong ensemble cast directed tightly by Anna Himali Howard the first act was a delight”

THE SECRET GARDEN at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Reviewed on 25th June 2024

by Debbie Rich

Photography by Alex Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE SECRET GARDEN

THE SECRET GARDEN