Puppets apart The BFG is not the giant hit I hoped for says our critic

The BFG (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon)

Verdict: Overstretched

Rating:

The BFG may be a big, friendly giant, but the poor guy still looks a little lost on the RSC’s main stage in Stratford. There isn’t quite enough going for him in this puppet-based version of Roald Dahl’s story about a little orphan called Sophie, who he abducts when she catches him dispensing her dreams.

Terrified of being banged up in a zoo, our super-size hero grabs Sophie and legs it to Giant Country, where she names him the BFG — after discovering that he’s actually a kindly vegetarian, bullied by ‘human-bean eating’ giants.

To help trounce these ogres, Sophie persuades the BFG to get help from the Queen of ‘Ingerlund’: who promptly dispatches bodyguards to do the job.

And that’s about it, in this mildly muddled adaptation by Tom Wells and Jenny Worton.

Yes, the BFG is a little awkward. Yes, the Queen is a frustrated prisoner of palace routines. And yes, Sophie and her friend Kimberley (Ellemie Shivers and Maisy Lee on press night this week) are a plucky pairing. ‘I’m eight,’ Sophie tells the BFG when she thinks she’s about to become giant food. ‘I’ve had a good innings.’ But the amiable plot never hits any great heights.

Thanks to Toby Olie’s spectacular puppetry, Daniel Evans’s production playfully shifts perspective from a feisty, life-sized Sophie working alongside a giant puppet BFG; to a tiny puppet Sophie, dwarfed by actor John Leader’s BFG.

And yet these clever changes of scale also make the episodic plot stutter and stall.

Where the BFG in the book is a wizened old man (Mark Rylance in the Spielberg film), here he’s a bashful, elephant-eared youth. The move may seem sweet and relatable, but it weakens the tension between him and Sophie — and loses the echoes of Dahl and his eldest daughter Olivia, who tragically died of encephalitis aged seven.

Even so, little Miss Shivers makes a big impression as fearless young Sophie — ‘I’m not scared. This isn’t even my first kidnapping,’ she tells the Queen’s guards in a Buckingham Palace prison cell.

And Helena Lymbery is a model of savoir faire as Her Maj, decorating Sophie with a broach and commenting ‘it never hurts to accessorise’.

Vicki Mortimer’s deep purple-and-pink cave-like set creates some surreal atmosphere, and there is an inoffensive score by Oleta Haffner, lifted by magical moments of tinkling harp.

And there is fun in Dahl’s wordplay – whether talking about BFG's disgusting ‘snozzcumber’ food, or his bright green ‘frobscottle’ fizzy drink (also available at the bar), which triggers an outburst of ‘whizzpopping’ at the end. On stage.

But what’s really needed are some of the songs — and the swagger — of the RSC’s big Dahl money spinner, Matilda.

Until February 7. 

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A Child’s Christmas In Wales (Lucky Chance, Frome, Somerset)

Verdict: Snow-stopping theatre

Rating:

‘It was always snowing at Christmas,’ says the narrator (played here by a beguiling, jaunty Katy Owen) in Dylan Thomas’s glistening snow-covered poem.

And so it is in Emma Rice’s characteristically playful, evocative story-telling. There’s no business like Rice’s snow-business: paper cut-outs, showers of confetti-like dots, doilies folded over window bars (my favourite), shiny white plates sliding from the rooftop, balled white socks that become ‘deadly snowballs’.

Meanwhile, the postman ‘with wind-cherried nose’ skates and slithers and the kids mutter ‘Crunch, crunch, crunch’ as they trudge through ‘the bandaged town’.

Yet it couldn’t be cosier in the converted chapel that has become Rice’s new rehearsal and occasional performance space.

On the stage is a giant wardrobe with huge doors — part Wendy house, part advent calendar — into which the audience peers and finds a bygone, simpler world of childhood innocence. Aunties sip parsnip and elderberry wine, children ‘smoke’ sugar ciggies while uncles smoke fat cigars, holding them as if they were about to explode, then nod off, grunting ‘like dolphins’.

Brought to exquisite tinkling life by a pianist and four actors, expert clowns, singers, puppeteers and shadow-players, this is the perfect antidote to pantomime and sickly-sweet, sentimental Christmas shows. It’s snow-stopping poetry in motion.

Until December 21; for information visit emmaricecompany.co.uk

GEORGINA BROWN

PANTOS ON PARADE...BY VERONICA LEE

Cinderella And The Matzo Ball (JW3 , London)

Verdict: Dough, dough good

Rating:

Booking the BBC’s Emma Barnett for JW3’s panto with a Jewish twist is a coup. The Today presenter appears in pre-recorded audio (a trend this year) on ‘The 10 O’Clock Jews’: delivering updates on the state of the Kosher Kingdom.

Cinderella (Talia Pick) is made to work all hours in a bakery owned by the Ugly Sisters (Libby Liburd and Rosie Yadid). And when she meets the Prince (Ronan Quiniou) at the Matzo Ball he’s not so charming. Finding she’s penniless, he banishes her to the non-kosher seaside Land of Traif, where she has to avoid the ubiquitous seafood, including a marauding giant prawn.

Luckily Buttons (Talya Soames) comes to the rescue — and (spoiler alert) it all ends happily.

Nick Cassenbaum’s witty script is knead-deep in bread-based puns and the music is strong, but the physical comedy lacks zip.

The pace quickens in the second act, when the affecting narrative — about people forgetting their differences and just getting along — comes into sharp focus.

Until January 4 (jw3.org.uk)

Peter Pan: A New Pantomime Adventure (Greenwich Theatre, London)

Verdict: You’ll be hooked

Rating:

There’s real skill in writing a family panto that manages to be ooh-er-missus lewd but keeps children thoroughly entertained, too — and that’s the trick writer Anthony Spargo has pulled off here, with fart gags and a plethora of puns to keep young ones amused.

Spargo also stars as Captain Hook, who is searching for the fountain of youth.

He believes that Peter Pan (Samuel Bailey) knows its location, and he’s helped (or rather, hindered) in his search for it by salty old sea dogs Smee and Starkey (Louise Cielecki and Paul Critoph, providing good comedy).

Olivia Williamson appeals as a crotchety Gen-Z Tinkerbell, crossing swords with the spirited Wendy (Nikita Johal) when she sees her becoming best buddies with Peter.

Spargo’s Hook is deliciously camp and he’s at the heart of the show, forming a real connection with the audience.

Despite an occasional dip in pace, director James Haddrell keeps things moving along pretty smartly, packing in lots of stage business and poppy songs from the onstage band in a thoroughly good-hearted show.

Until January 11 (greenwichtheatre.org.uk)