A HIGH-KICKING WOODEN WONDER
Serious fun, this. Never liked the Disney Pinocchio, or even in childhood the over-preachy Carlo Collodi book about the defiant wooden puppet who defies his creator Gepetto and falls in with a talking insect and sententious fairy. But Joanna Carrick’s retelling pulls all the right strings with mischievous energy, and this is a pure delight. Schools have been flooding in and booking it out, and though I was at the adult-full premiere the children in my eyeline were shrieking with glee.
Pinocchio is every small child: running around breaking rules, looking for excitement, deciding to be good and then not being, discovering the energy in its body and dancing with manic indiscipline. A child seizing at novelties, easily fooled, dismayed, repentant. Evangeline Dickson’s remarkable performance catches all this. Her `Pinocchio is entirely beguiling, mischievous grin slumping to sudden realization of the latest disaster . Above all her moves – mad dances in particular – are mesmerizingly wild and odd. I see she is credited as movement director, but with designer Katy Latham as choreographer: what is clear is that a lot of work and thought has come in to creating something so gloriously kicking, capering, wild and childlike. You really need to see the donkey dance. Really.
Alongside her Jack Heydon is a wild-haired Gepetto, Vicino, Fox, Fairy and Wagoner; LIam Bull is ten others. Both are adept at the revue-style genre which (ever since the Reduced Shakespeare Company shows) I have cherished as a favourite: call it the “Sudden-different-hat” genre, complete with comic metatheatre acknowledgments of its absurdity. Both Heydon and Bull are astonishingly deft , and Bull a natural audience-baiter: more happy shrieks from front row, even the adults. Carrick’s adaptation also takes the trouble to have the giant shark (or whale) swallow the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine so that the friendly tuna-fish which Gepetto and Pinocchio meet in its stomach is actually Paul McCartney. Talking entirely in old Beatles’ lyrics, of course.
So pure pleasure, altogether. The set is built with remarkable folksy old-Italy detail by Vincent Moisy (himself fresh from the copany’s London triumph as Witchfinder General in Carrick’s The Ungodly and going to Broadway in 2025). The invisible stage management is by Rei Mordue (the said Witchfinder’s victim): she creates endless deft appearances and set tricks as the two men dart between characters. At one point Heydon mutates into the Blue Fairy , changing costume in the middle of a song and appropriately shooting up an octave for her last notes.
Red Rose Chain is a community, small and locally rooted. If my account of principles in the last show operating backstage and building sets in this one makes it sound a bit jolly- am-dram, be assured it is not. Professional, skilful and funny, it is one of the best children’s Christmas shows Carrick has done, and the finest anywhere I have seen for a few years. Need to say that, because critics often responsibly have to acknowledge the merits and suitability of kids’ theatre without actually enjoying it much. But this one is pure pleasure. Take a child if you can. But if not, enjoy.
redrosechain.com to 5 Jan
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