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Beauty and the Beast

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow

Four stars 

 

When times are tough, secret worlds await in this new look at the classic eighteenth century French folktale, which here de-Disneyfies things to get beneath the skin of the story. In Lewis Hetherington’s version, Israela Efomi’s Beauty is one of two daughters to the widowed Baron Aaron, for whom business is a crash and burn affair, while encouraging Beauty that looks alone are all she needs to get by. Beauty’s sister Bright, on the other hand, has big ideas of her own. 

 

When her dad’s wheeler dealing sees him go bust, the family are forced to move to a woodland shack. A chance encounter with a seemingly scary monster sees the Baron bargain with Beauty, who is exiled to the nearby castle, rendered as a spooky cartoon construction by designer Rachael Canning. With feline friend Mr Mittens in tow, Beauty finds a spooky world of locked rooms and celestial sounds, as well as a Beast whose bark is considerably worse than his bite, notwithstanding his sprout-fuelled flatulence. Running the house is Elicia Daly’s bumptious Mrs Flabberlyloo, who pootles about like a Dickensian landlady with extra added grotesquerie and a penchant for belting out discordant ditties. 

 

What follows in Dominic Hill and Joanna Bowman’s production is a coming together of seemingly at odds personalities that shows through Beast’s secret origin story as a bullying toff that even monsters and bad fairies have a human side. 

 

Efomi and Nicholas Marshall have a ball in the title roles, with Michael Guest’s Mr Mittens and the doggy delights of Martin Donaghy’s Captain Biscuits making fine Scooby Gang like sidekicks. Daly, Collins and Holly Howden Gilchrist as a geeked up Bright raise the comic stakes even more. Nikola Kodjabashia’s live score puts music at the show’s narrative core, as Bright’s Space Lady like appliance of science sees her channel the airwaves to lay old ghosts to rest and save the day in this welcome return of a Citizens Theatre Christmas. 


The Herald, December 9th 2025

 

Ends

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