The
Playhouse, Edinburgh
Four
stars
Roald
Dahl adored revolting children. The double-edged sword of that phrase has
probably helped Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin’s musical version of Dahl’s 1988
novel become such a global hit over the last eight years. The Royal Shakespeare
Company’s UK tour of Matthew Warchus’ original production chimes too with recent
real-life classroom uprisings throughout the land. So when a stage full of
schoolboys and girls flunk their spelling bee to show solidarity with their
classmate about to be tortured by the despotic Miss Trunchbull, it’s a moment
worthy of Spartacus.
By this
point, child genius Matilda has transcended her background born to the
vulgarian Wormwood clan to find salvation in books, from Dickens to Dostoyevsky,
as well as carving out her own story as she discovers the power of her
imagination. Finding a kindred spirit and protector in her saintly teacher Miss
Honey, this little rebel becomes the quiet but subversive catalyst for change,
not least through her hitherto undiscovered telekinetic tendencies.
All this
is brought to life through a refreshingly down-to-earth mix of Kelly’s words
and Minchin’s cabaret-style showtunes, which we hear through the mouths of an
astonishingly well-drilled cast led by the nine child performers onstage, who
make up one of four teams on a rota. Together with the grown-ups, they leap
their way through Peter Darling’s dance routines on Rob Howell’s Scrabble board
of a set.
Matilda’s
elders are either scary grotesques like Elliot Harper’s Miss Trunchbull, or are
candidates for Childline like the Wormwoods, played with cartoon-like relish by
Sebastien Torkia and Rebecca Thornhill. So well do they satirise lowest common
denominator ignorance spiv-like couple could have leapt straight from the pages
of Viz comic. Only Carly Thoms’ Miss Honey radiates the light of a moral
compass.
Carrying
the show on Thursday night, however, was Scarlett Cecil as Matilda, who,
onstage pretty much throughout, never flagged once in a show of strength and chutzpah
that matched her character. As intellect and goodness triumphed over stupidity
and greed, Matilda gave us hope that the geek may yet inherit the earth.
The Herald, April 5th 2019
ends
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