Steven Webb in I Want My Hat Back at the Temporary Theatre at the National Theatre, London. Picture: Richard Davenport
I Want My Hat Back continues at the Temporary Theatre at the National Theatre, London until 2 January, 2016.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★
Spoiler Alert – just in case you don’t want to know what happens at the end of the book!!
Children are a tricky crowd to delight. Underwhelmed, they’re the hecklers from hell. Overwhelm them and you’ll have a riot on your hands. Jon Klassen’s children’s book, with its shifty-eyed protagonists and deadpan humour, has become something of a classic in recent years amongst adults and children alike. Now, for the first time, it’s been adapted for the stage by the combined talents of Joel Horwood (book and lyrics) and Arthur Darvill (music), premiering at the National Theatre’s Temporary stage, and director Wils Wilson’s production treads that tightrope deftly.
Following the book’s deadpan pastiche of the common bedtime-story formula, we meet Bear, a clumsy soul content in the possession (for now) of his favourite thing ever, his pointy red hat. Laying his treasure beside him, Bear takes a nap, but rolls away in his sleep, leaving the obsessive rabbit to procure it. Marek Larwood and Steven Webb are physical masters as (respectively) Bear and Rabbit, at polar ends of the spectrum in their energy. Bear lumbers from friend to friend, falling further into clumsy despondency each time his trail goes cold, and haplessly oblivious to the thieving rabbit each time he crosses his path. Larwood is a great clown, always with one eye on the audience and an ad-lib up his sleeve to keep his euphorically frustrated assembly at bay.
Webb could not be more perfectly cast as Rabbit. His acrobatic physicality, if nothing else, brings the house down. Pinpoint comic timing, brilliantly observed mannerisms and a voice bursting with exuberance combine to make an unforgettable character. Webb sculpts a loveable villain to such an extent that his ultimate demise is quite a blow.
Although I’m a firm advocate of encouraging the ugly and revolting in children’s literature, I’m in two minds about the brutality of the eventual kill. I conclude that it’s not the action itself, but the starkness of the moment that, on this occasion, doesn’t land quite right. One of my favourite moments from the book itself is the reveal that Bear has, in fact, eaten the rabbit, but it is never visualised, only implied. Translating that moment in all its irony to stage is tough, and I think it’s the process of deduction that I mourn as opposed to the innocence. It just feels a little out of character from the rest of the show. It would be interesting to view the scene again with a slightly older audience.
It is still, however, delightful to see a scene which takes aback the grown-ups in the audience more than the children. As one steely little girl of no more than four years old in front of me declared: “Oh good, that hat didn’t fit him anyway.” Heaven help us.
Arthur Darvill’s score travels all over the world, from flamenco patter to pop/rock power ballad, to 1950s crooner ballad, to brass band chase sequences and beyond. It is a score full of joyful spontaneity and invention with a lovely melodic kick. Larwood’s libretto is faithful to the original text with delightfully silly lyrics and character embellishments which are totally idiosyncratic, with great reverence to the illustrations. A favourite of mine is the tortoise, doggedly focused upon his task for the day – climbing his rock. Three actor/musician stags in lederhosen and tights accompany the voices from their little home above the stage, glowering down stonily in their bedazzled antler headbands.
Costumes and set (design is by Fly Davis) have a cosy 1970s feel to them, with token items to signpost, as the agile and versatile chorus camouflage seamlessly between set-pieces, humans and animal. The ensemble makes a masterful job of switching between roles and atmospheres, with the audience, for the most part, hooked on every move.
At the end of this journey, I was ridded with all the right questions. How did that song about a hat manage to mention every word that rhymed with, but never the word, ‘Hat’? Why was the bear wearing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt under his fur? And what IS the THING?!
This show is, as proudly stated by the National Theatre, a treat for everyone from 3 to 300, and unlike many a promise made by children’s theatre, it really does offer something for everyone. Rarely is a West End show so generous with its patience as to invite the children to help set up the stage and play Twister with the cast before the show begins. It would have been enough to sit and watch the school groups’ reactions throughout – the audience emerged an hour later, grown-ups and grown-downs, flushed and full of being young and silly.
Aura Simon
Look out for an interview with I Want My Hat Back writer Joel Horwood very soon!
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