The Witches - Review

National Theatre, London

***

Music and lyrics by Dave Malloy

Book and lyrics by Lucy Kirkwood

Directed by Lyndsey Turner

Katherine Kingsley and the Witches

Roald Dahl’s The Witches is a famously fabulous children’s tale, exploring the nightmarish conceit that witches walk among us. In a new staging, Lucy Kirkwood and Dave Malloy have taken Dahl’s wickedly inventive story and fashioned it into a musical. Fresh from the challenge of successfully directing the National’s recent production of The Crucible, a facts-based tale of fictitious witches, Lyndsey Turner now turns her hand to helming this fictional yarn about real life sorceresses.

The show follows young Luke, orphaned early on and his journey to battle a coven of everyday women who are really witches and who wish to rid the world of all children by turning them into mice. The story is Dahl at his most devilishly imaginative and yet the Kirkwood and Malloy collaboration, whilst good in parts, blunts a lot of Dahl’s pointed genius.

Turner’s cast are terrific with Sally Ann Triplett and Katherine Kingsley up against each other as Luke’s elderly Gran vs the Grand High Witch respectively. Both women are brilliant, belting their solo numbers magnificently, it’s just a shame that the lyrics are so wan and the two womens’ backstory that should explain their decades-old enmity, so poorly explained.

Both Dahl and witchcraft have been served brilliantly by musical theatre in recent decades with Tim Minchin’s Matilda and Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked both being shows with masses of heart and real humanity generated through classy melodies and perceptively penned lyrics. Kirkwood and Malloy are not in the same league - and while their visuals are imaginative, (kids will likely love the show) there’s not enough meat in this adaptation to satisfy a more discerning audience.

Aside from the two adult leads, a trio of child actors are equally brilliant (Luke played by Frankie Keita on the night of this review, alongside George Menezes Cutts and Asanda Abbie Masike in two complementing featured roles) with confident and beautifully voiced performances. Equally Stephen Mear’s choreography is as ever a treat, going so far as to include a line-up of perfectly tap dancing, mostly middle-aged witches. that would not be out of place performing Who’s That Woman from Follies.

The National is a world-class theatre with its Olivier auditorium arguably the nation’s premier stage. For a venue where technical wizardry and breathtaking design are the norm, it is a disappointment that much of the show’s visuals and magic are clunky. While the human talent in Turner’s company is unquestionably outstanding, the occasionally malfunctioning mechanical mice together with what can best be described as amateurish children’s costumes in the finale, suggest a production that has failed to reach its ambitions. Cat Beveridge directs her lavishly furnished 13-piece band with aplomb – it's just a shame that Malloy’s melodies are quickly forgettable.

There is fun to be had with The Witches – but there could have been so much more.

Runs until 27th January 2024

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Savoy Theatre, London

****

Music and lyrics by David Yazbek
Written by Jeffrey Lane
Directed by Jerry Mitchell

Rufus Hound and Robert Lindsay

Located in the plush basement of one of London’s grandest hotels, the Savoy Theatre could not be a more fitting venue for a show that gloriously revolves around both the real and (far more entertainingly) the illusory trappings of wealth and style. This UK premiere of David Yazbek's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a chic and jazzy treat, with the show's cracking overture in particular being a perfect scene setter. 

The story owes its modern-day fame to the classic movie caper starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine. The screen giants played two rival con-men plying the French Riviera and out to fleece millionaire heiress Christine Colgate, of her fortune. In the right hands the tale is comedy gold, with Yazbeck describing the movie as “ripe for adaptation”. The Tony winning show first opened in the US in 2006, directed by Jack O'Brien with Jerry Mitchell choreographing. This time round, in addition to the dance work, Mitchell returns to helm the show, describing his take on the the piece as “re-conceived and re-imagined”. Whilst the producers can be assured of a hit as this is (yet another) musical that has been safely based upon and inspired by a massive movie, it still bursts with invigorating panache and style. 

Gimmick free, there is a reliance upon the traditional values of strong tunes, clever lyrics and classy performances. The movie set a high bar for the two leading men and when it comes to delivering faux class in London, Robert Lindsay and Rufus Hound as the lovable rogues are sublime. Lindsay, surely another national treasure in waiting, plays the cool and experienced con Lawrence Jameson, with his first appearance on stage prompting an unusual (and British traditionalists may venture to suggest, unwelcome) New York style round of applause. Sliding into the piece with a suave charm, he seals the illusion of the Riviera location. Alongside Hound, very much an emergent star of the modern era, the two are an engine of pinpoint pace, delivering some of the best comic timing in town. 

Other stand out performances come from Katherine Kingsley's Colgate, whose voice gives Yazbeck’s melodies a sexiness and innocence, whilst John Marquez as Andre Thibault has a great time with some of Jeffrey Lane’s cheeky one liners. Mitchell’s direction is canny throughout, though his choreography despite being stunning and sharp, lacks a risk that may well have given some of the bigger ensemble numbers greater impact. 

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is an example of first class musical theatre. One grins throughout and in much the same way that rascal Jameson returns to to the Riviera for each season, so are audiences likely to do the same for this dirty rotten treat of a show. 

Booking to 29th November 2014