Picture: Helen Maybanks
The Wicker Husband continues at the Watermill Theatre, Bagnor until 26 March 2022.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
One can only assume that fate has played a manipulative role in The Wicker Husband, finally having its long-awaited run at the Watermill Theatre this month.
From the first reading of writers Rhys Jennings and Darren Clark’s adaptation of Ursula Wills’ short story in 2011 it’s been a long climb to bring this production to its full glory 11 years later. The show’s development has followed a turbulent course, getting stuck in the shallows on many occasions, and then being hurled forwards in tidal waves only to flounder in the rockpools. Its last hopes were dashed by Covid when it closed immediately after opening night at the Watermill in March 2022, but thanks to the perseverance and tenacity of the creative team, its story is now being told.
If there was ever a time that the show should find a definite place that time is now. The story’s themes of jealousy, envy, ambition and rivalry which force a community apart and destroy other people through cruelty and destruction echo compelling parallels with current world news.
Finn Caldwell brings his incredible puppetry expertise from War House, Life of Pi and The Ocean at the End of the Lane to this production. His design skills imitate real life so that the puppetry is inexorably intertwined. As the Wicker Husband cries out in pain and then whimpers his last breaths, the dexterity of the puppeteers (Sebastian Charles, Nisha Anil and George Maguire) combined with the ingenuity of the creature’s design bring the puppet convincingly to life even in the throes of death.
Julian Forsyth is the Old Basketmaker whose powers ensure that all bad deeds do not go unpunished. His omnipresence at the key moments of the plot is beautifully accentuated by the magical puppetry that surrounds his god-like benevolence.
Gemma Sutton brings a touch of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s bad Cinderella to the stage while safeguarding the uniqueness of Ugly Girl in a demonstrative performance which gives credibility to the character’s emphatic determination to be accepted.
The townsfolk are brilliantly played by Joseph Alessi as Cobbler and Angela Caesar as his wife, Jonathan Charles as Innkeep and Claire-Marie Hall as his wife, and Jack Quarton as Tailor and Davina Moon as his wife, with all them keeping perfectly within the boundaries of believable caricatures.
The menacing Lady Hawthorn Head is puppeteered by Tom Norman with an engaging and spirited onstage band headed by Pat Moran and supported by Rachel Barnes and Jon Whitten.
Mirroring the backwater surroundings of the Watermill itself, the old willow tree dominates Anna Kelsey’s set design, the only criticism being the flat-floored stage which masks some of director Charlotte Westenra’s sympathetic direction that is lost to the audience in the front stalls.
Julie Watterston
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.