![]() But they were truly first rate on press night. There they’re greeted by uppity hotelier Mr Stringer, played by the great Daniel Rigby – surely British theatre’s greatest comic actor – as a cross between Basil Fawlty and a gazelle, bounding weightlessly about the stage as he bullies his poor guests and fawns over his rich ones.Īnd I can’t miss out Katherine Kingsley, phenomenal as the self-regarding, ludicrously Nordic-accented Grand High Witch who wearily taps at her phone while occasionally immolating her dimwit minions.įurthermore: the kids! I’m a bit wary of going on about specific child actors in a review given they’re rotated night on night. She soon sings the bemused lad a song about the dangers of witches before having a heart attack that leads to the pair of them being sent to a ropey Bournemouth hotel for her to recuperate – unaware that it’s playing host to the annual conference of English witches. ![]() After unsentimentally bumping off 11-year-old hero Luke’s parents in a car crash at the beginning, it takes a headlong dive into the cartoonish with the arrival of musical theatre heavyweight Sally Anne Triplett, having the time of her life as his shit-kicking, cigar-chomping Norwegian grandmother. It’s not that it’s not scary: in the superbly staged opening number, a series of at first benign, begloved ladies reveal that they are in fact witches: they transform from sweet to black eyed and sinister with just a flick of Bruno Poet’s excellent lighting and a swish of Stephen Mear’s subtle, evocative choreography.īut to reiterate the point, any scares are largely overridden by how spectacularly fun it is. But Kirkwood and co stamp down on the accelerator and go hell for leather with the yucks. ![]() It sees writer Lucy Kirkwood and director Lyndsey Turner - two heavyweight Brit talents who’ve never been involved with a musical before – join forces with cult US composer Dave Malloy to create something that’s singularly fun, further elevated by an absurdly good, galacticos-grade cast.ĭahl’s original 1988 novel is a slyly funny parable, as is Dahl’s wont. Because it’s quite easily the funniest new musical London has seen since at least ‘The Book of Mormon’. But the National Theatre’s Roald Dahl adaptation ‘The Witches’ really is for everyone, (everyone over eight anyway).
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