Earlier this yr, a variety of theatre professionals shared, through Twitter, tales of being rejected for jobs as a result of their “solely” theatre expertise concerned working with younger folks. So fallacious! As this world premiere of Roald Dahl’s quick story, together with different productions reviewed on these pages over the previous few weeks, demonstrates, youth theatre requires not less than as a lot ability as supposedly “grownup” theatre. Right here, it calls for much more. Not solely should director Ben Harrison and his gifted firm transport their viewers to an Indian jungle, London casinos, the world of social media and so forth, they need to – and do – current seemingly unimaginable feats of magic.
Social media? The unique story of the transformation of debonair Henry Sugar (David Rankine) from spoilt wealthy man to selfless philanthropist is, in fact, computer-free. Nonetheless, Rob Drummond’s adaptation extends Dahl’s Chinese language box-style narrative to incorporate a brand new character, teenager Mary (Eve Buglass), alone in her bed room (in Becky Minto’s impressed design, that is an precise field that strikes across the many-curtained stage as freely because the laptop computer display it mimics). For Henry and Mary, “sufficient is rarely sufficient”: he craves cash, she solicits followers for her just-created social media account. Their lives are reworked by their separate encounters with a guide/book by which India-based Dr Cartwright (Rosalind Sydney) narrates the story of Imhrat Khan (Johndeep Extra), the person “who might see with out utilizing his eyes”.
By way of Mary, Drummond introduces a cautionary-tale high quality to the story that successfully highlights the message of the Roald Dahl Story Firm (a co-producer together with Perth theatre and Helen Milne Productions) about “the ability of kindness”. This ethical focus blunts Dahl’s ironic narrative tone, however it builds a dramatic impetus essential to the stage motion (additional enlivened by wittily managed direct interactions with the viewers, who threatened, on press night time, to upstage the actors – a person leaping as much as defend his spouse’s honour from Sugar/Rankine’s flirty advert lib raised a gale of laughter and spherical of applause). As to feats described within the story – of levitation, mind-reading, seeing by strong objects – the mixed abilities of the solid with Fergus Dunnet (illusions), Simon Wilkinson (lighting), Scott Twynholm (sound and music) and Lewis den Hertog (projections) work magic. In youth theatre, as in all theatre, seeing is believing.
The Fantastic Story of Henry Sugar is at Perth theatre till 2 April, then touring
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