Just So – The Musical continues at the Barn Theatre, Cirencester until 13 January 2019.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
It is 33 years now since composer George Stiles and lyricist Anthony Drewe, then students at Exeter University, won the first-ever Vivian Ellis Prize with the musical Just So, currently settling in as the first Christmas attraction at Cirencester’s enterprising new Barn Theatre in the heart of the Cotswolds.
Their witty, and at times moving, musical blend of five of Rudyard Kipling’s allegorical stories about the animal kingdom rapidly caught the attention of a young Cameron Mackintosh, paving the way for such future Stiles/Drewe ventures as the musicals Honk! and Betty Blue Eyes, and additional songs for the stage version of Mary Poppins.
The sung-through style of Just So has remained in fashion in the intervening years. Director Kirk Jameson and his young 10-strong cast wisely avoid too much preaching, concentrating instead on the sharp lyrics and the delightful animal characters that make the show accessible to all ages.
The storyline recounts how from the dawn of time the symbolic Eldest Magician, played with authority by Duncan Drury, ensures that the world’s animals grow to be different from one another. At the same time, he guides the quest of the central character, the courageous and insatiably curious Elephant’s Child, attractively located on the cusp of adulthood by Lewis Cornay, to combat the havoc being wrought on the oceans by the giant crab Pau Amma.
His opponent is menacingly voiced by the experienced Matthew Kelly, while the rest of the cast follow the current (almost obligatory) trend of playing a variety of musical instruments, as well as fleshing out the eccentric mix of characters.
Irish songbird Molly Lynch, as the Elephant Child’s mainly loyal companion, the flightless Kolokolo Bird, makes the most of the show’s best number ‘Wait a Bit’; Rosalind Ford and Imogen Halsey are hilariously in harmony as the fashion-challenged Zebra and Giraffe; and Kiran Patel and Michaela Stern both come close to stealing the evening as the suitably topical cake-baking Parsee and a feisty Rhino.
A large part of the magic is down to the creative team, from musical supervisor Nick Barstow’s new orchestrations to Joanna Goodwin’s vivid choreography and Sam Rowcliffe-Tanner’s multi-shaded lighting.
The evening closes with a re-working of Kipling’s most famous poem ‘If’. It is the perfect end to a delightful Christmas entertainment.
Jeremy Brien
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