The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe @ King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

By WJQuinn Feb 11, 2022 8:45 AM

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has all the makings of a great show, but the production ultimately feels less than the sum of its parts.

📍 King’s Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 TUE 08 FEB TO SAT 12 FEB 2022
🕖 Running time: approx. 2 hours 10 minutes (Including interval)
🎂 6+
👥 Director: Michael Fentiman
👥 Original Producing Director: Sally Cookson
👥 Tour Set & Costume Design: Tom Paris
👥 Original Set & Costume Design: Rae Smith
👥 Dramaturg & Original Writer in the Room: Adam Peck
👥 Composition: Benji Bower & Barnaby Race
💰 From £21.50
🎭 Audio Description: Sat 12 February 2.00PM – Caroline Jaquet, Judy Gilbert
🎭 BSL – Sign Language Interpreted: Sat 12 February 2.00PM – Iain Hodgetts
🎭 Touch Tours: Sat 12 February 1.00PM

This Leeds Playhouse rendition of C.S. Lewis’s most famous book, was first workshopped into existence in back in 2017. No single creative mind gave birth to this Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but rather a team, including, but not limited to: writer Adam Peck, original director, Sally Cookson, and puppeteer extraordinaire Rae Smith of War Horse fame.

Another mighty cadre of artistic minds, led by director Michael Fentiman, have resurrected that show, and taken it on the road. Equipped with enough directors to marshal a small army — so long as that army is in want of choreography, aerial acrobatics oversight, and/or expert musical guidance — Michael‘s production is very much a “more is more” endeavour.

The cast is a box of theatrical swiss army knives, nearly every single member not only acting, but singing, dancing, and playing an instrument, often all at the same time. From the first set piece, as our protagonists, the Pevensie children are evacuated from war-time London by means of model rail, and modern dance, the audience is made well aware of the abundance of talent arrayed before them.

Eventually the kids land upon the rural doorstep of eccentric Professor Kirk (Johnson Willis), and his pathologically strict housekeeper Mrs Macready (Samantha Womack). The children will eventually find a wardrobe, and eventually pass through to the magical land of Narnia, there to befriend talking, singing, dancing, instrument playing animals, and eventually join their struggle against wintry suppression beneath the heeled boot of the White Witch (also Samantha Womack)

It’s all a wee bit “eventually,” if you get me?

The first act does just enough to bring first Lucy (Karise Yansen), then the rest of her siblings through the titular wardrobe into Narnia, and to establish a conflict with villainous White Witch (Samantha Womack).

Post intermission, we still have to meet Santa (also Johnson Willis), before the titular Lion, Aslan, a chimera of large-scale puppetry combined with a hirsute Chris Jarad, can appear. Given that no transition, or introduction is safe from a musical dance ambush, the show’s terminus is already within site before it springs the necessary crisis to provoke meaningful narrative progress. Given lack of opportunity to invest in the lives and fates of our heroes, however, the audience could be forgiven for not caring how they deal with the fallout.

Let me stop now to extol the virtues of Benji Bower and Barnaby Race’s musical score, a stirring, and often touching piece of Celtic-shaded composition. The company most definitely possess the requisite skills to deliver it, and the resulting spectacle is regularly, and unquestionably impressive.

The puppetry is admirable, particularly that of the Professor’s cat, Schrodinger, which if lacking the scale of the horse-sized Aslan, is all the more charming, and nuanced. The wire work is ambitious, particularly the arresting vision of The White Witch soaring high above the throng, icy skirts spanning the entire stage.

Rae Smith and Tom Paris’s stationary set is all circles, a motif I confess I wasn’t quite sure what to make of, but it’s monumental, and the props, some brought to life by the cast, do provide a sufficiently magical and adaptable backdrop.

No quantity of bells, nor whistles, however, can make up for this show’s wildly varying pace. Of the origin text, much of the philosophy is stripped, leaving storylines of betrayal, redemption, and resurrection to appear and vanish from stage like so many lost orphans. The intent, I believe is to create a more atavistic than spiritual story, but the result is somewhat closer to cosy, and folky.

Still, there are encouraging flashes of menace from time to time, mostly due to a muscular, and quadrupedal tour de force from a masked Michael Ahkoma-Lindsay as Maugrim, captain of the White Witch’s secret police. Unfortunately proceedings are swiftly directed away from the unsettling darkness that one might associate with an army of creatures of the night and their psychotic ruler. Yes, it’s a family show, but no great adventure story ever sold a triumph without first showing us despair.

Of the four youthful Pevensiei protagonists, Peter (Ammar Duffus), strikes the most impressive figure, Duffus is a young actor with serious stage presence. Amidst the ranks of their senior counterparts, Jez Unwin’s Mr. Tumnus provides a most accomplished performance in both word and song, though one might consider his ethically conflicted faun singularly blessed, having the only true arc in the piece. Most everyone else seems to meet curtain down pretty much the same person it rose upon.

Let me be very clear, though, there are no weak links on stage, but if one were to strip out the all singing, all dancing parts (which are very well done), the remainder would be a slender skeleton to say the least. The many artistic directors and choreographers are to be congratulated for a very slick production, and there there’s a great deal of joy about the whole thing, just little to no narrative tension.

You might be about to leave this review thinking I must have hated the show, but that’s far from the truth. There really is so much talent behind The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, that it simply amazes me that the end result is merely good. I’m continually reminded of the phrase, “too many cooks spoil the broth,” and this, it transpires, is true, no matter how abundantly talented the cooks are.

For tickets, and more information on this production, please click here.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will tour the UK until May, to find your nearest performance, please click here.

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