Creation Theatre’s Hansel & Grettel a musical menu of catchy songs spiced up with mystical spells
Creation Theatre; Hansel & Grettel
at the North Wall, Oxford
until January 4
By Jon Lewis
The Witch is Feeling Peckish
Times must be hard in the restaurant business in the forests of Grimm if the witches can only order takeaway children to roast in their ovens for dinner. In Paul Boyd’s hugely entertaining musical adaptation of the folk tale Hansel & Gretel that was collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812, the long-slumbering witch (a gloriously gothic Jane Milligan) and her devil-worshipping minions start collecting children so that the semi-blind witch can regain her full demonic powers.
The show opens with the shrouded cast intoning Boyd’s rock opera-style number, Tempus Fugit, in some kind of ancient ritual. Hansel (Connor Keetley) and his sister, the wordsmith Grettel (Hayley Murray), are adventuring far from their parents Avis (Clare Rickard, who also plays a wonderfully mute goblin helping the witch cook the children) and Hertz (Herb Cuanalo).
More by accident than design, a haul of pebbles collected by Hansel falls through a convenient hole in his pocket onto the forest floor leaving a trail to follow home. Hansel is prepared next time and when history repeats itself, he knows he can track mouldy breadcrumbs that he has dropped on the paths.
The forest is full of helpful creatures. A bird that stole Hansel’s breadcrumbs, amusingly named Gregory Peck (Christopher Finn, suitably dashing and flamboyant) enlists his friends to help the siblings when they are captured by the witch in her gingerbread house. Herb Cuanalo plays two of these friendly animals: Francis Drake, a duck that identifies himself as a wise owl, and hilariously, a blues-singing Dr Frog who ferries the children across a lake.
Although Boyd’s production is small with a professional cast of only six, it feels like a big, glitzy musical.
The witch, Wicked-green under the stage lights, is a proper villainess, although never scary enough to frighten little ones in the audience. Boyd’s script with its many witty lines and running gags is a total joy whilst the intimacy of the staging with no one far away from the stage ensures maximum involvement in the narrative.
The finale (no spoilers here) is just a little bit special and unmissable theatre.
