Skip to main content

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Four stars

Sirens and sleigh-bells are the dramatic pulse behind Andrew Panton's epic new staging of C.S. Lewis' Christian fantasia, adapted here by Theresa Heskins in a version given a fresh breath of life with new songs by Claire McKenzie and Scott Gilmour. The sirens accompany the story's four child heroes' escape to the country where they spend the war exploring the cavernous house where an eccentric professor lives. The sleigh-bells usher in the far darker presence of the White Witch who rules Narnia by force, decreeing it to remain forever winter, but without a hint of Christmas.

But there are prophecies to be fulfilled, and Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund are key players in all this, even as the ice slowly melts to signal the coming of Aslan, played by Ben Onwukwe as a dread-locked lord of all goodness.

Panton's production is an impressive feat of theatrical light and shade from the off, as the siblings enter the wardrobe of Becky Minto's expansive set, which opens out onto a wondrous tree-lined kingdom. Here, Cristian Ortega's Edmund whines like a spoilt Tory boy high on Turkish Delight and the prospect of power as he falls under the cruel spell of Pauline Knowles' White Witch. There is fun to be had with John Kielty and Gail Watson's Mr and Mrs Beaver, while Claire-Marie Seddon, James Rottger and Charlotte Miranda Smith play the other children with unabashed gusto.

Driven by the epic sweep of McKenzie's score, this very special show bridges the gulf between innocence and experience, and remains inspirational to the very end of the adventure.

The Herald, November 30th 2015

ends


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Passage – Hip Rebel Degenerates: Black, White and Red All Over

Prelude – The Power of Three   Fear. Power. Love. This life-and-death (un)holy trinity was the driving force and raisons d’être of The Passage, the still largely unsung Manchester band sired in what we now call the post-punk era, and who between 1978 and 1983 released four albums and a handful of singles.    Led primarily by composer Dick Witts, The Passage bridged the divide between contemporary classical composition and electronic pop as much as between the personal and the political. In the oppositional hotbed of Margaret Thatcher’s first landslide, The Passage fused agit-prop and angst, and released a song called Troops Out as a single. The song offered unequivocal support for withdrawing British troops from Northern Ireland.    They wrote Anderton’s Hall, about Greater Manchester’s born again right wing police chief, James Anderton, and, on Dark Times, rubbed Brechtian polemic up against dancefloor hedonism. On XOYO, their most commercial and potentially mo...
Post a Comment
Read more