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Pinocchio

Cumbernauld Theatre

Four stars

 

It’s all going on down in Timbernauld, where grand dame carpenter Gepetta tends to her wares, kept company by the grandson she magicked into being with a carving knife and a not entirely pure imagination. While their flea ridden dog Mozart lollops about indoors to its heart’s content, Pinocchio longs to step outside to the big bad world he can only see through the window. A conscientious cricket called Hingmy, meanwhile, only wants to come in from the cold. 

 

Gary McNair’s seasonal spin on Carlo Collodi’s much Disneyfied children’s story is both faithfully familiar and knowingly irreverent in its cheeky reimagining for this four-actor version brought to bright and energetic life in Laila Noble’s production. 

 

As Julia Murray’s wide-eyed Pinocchio embarks on an adventure that sees him conned by radges and kidnapped by human traffickers, Cole Stewart’s Gepetta holds court with Caitlin Forbes as Mozart and Stephanie MacGaraidh as Hingmy in a series of routines that just stop short of taking flight into full on panto. The result as the cast leap through Fraser Lappin’s shed based set is a series of rapid fire comic riffs that McNair and the cast revel in with a mix of gallus patter, bad jokes and a direct rapport with the audience that shops very local for some of its references. 

 

In what is essentially a coming of age fable on the perils of over protective parenting, the dig at the price of train fares and a hilarious Hansel and Gretel double act by Forbes and MacGaraidh keep things current. The words of wisdom on the only real free things in life, meanwhile, make for some good old-fashioned toilet humour that trumps things for all ages. Brian James O’Sullivan’s jaunty score drives the show’s momentum in a series of witty songs, as all four young cast members embrace the out and out silliness of a show that’s not afraid to enjoy itself in a way that makes for an infectiously sparky rites of passage. 


The Herald, December 9th 2024

 

Ends

 

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