Annabel King with puppeteers Nick Pack, Simon Kent and Jonathan Mulquin in Pinocchio at the Iris Theatre in St Paul’s The Actors’ Church, Covent Garden. Picture: Hannah Barton
Pinocchio continues at the Iris Theatre in the gardens of St Paul’s The Actors’ Church, Covent Garden, London until 29 August.
Star rating: 3 stars ★ ★ ★
A promenade show with puppets and a strong ensemble of seven, this is a rather original take on Carlo Collodi’s moralistic tale of redemption about the famous, lying, promise-breaking puppet boy. Daniel Winder’s two and a half hour version includes a number of things usually omitted from shorter dramatisations, including the death of Gepetto’s real son, a riddling monster, an ultimately benign fisherman and the Black Lobster Inn. So it feels quite fresh, given how familiar the main incidents – the cat and fox for example – are.
I wouldn’t normally commend a stage manager first but, given the technical complications of this show, Nikki Sammons is to be warmly congratulated. The show uses several different parts of the gardens, including setting two scenes on the church steps as a stage, and another which turns the main path into the line of a dramatic storm at sea. The final scene takes place inside the church which is very dark and highly atmospheric because we are inside the belly of Leviathan. Everywhere the action takes place there are props, shifting of seating, set to organise and it all happens very slickly.
There’s a lot of versatility within the talented cast. Annabel King, for instance, is good value as, among other things, a sneering, knowing Mistress Cherry, a jeering schoolchild and a Scottish snail. Nick Howard-Brown gives us a Rasputin-like schoolmaster, an avuncular omniscient narrating cricket, a gor blimey show supervisor and a fish-frying fisherman. His voice work is very fine.
It’s an enjoyable show which, while being completely suitable for children, also manages to be quite fun for everyone else, although it moves slowly in places and is probably 20 minutes too long. What it is not, however, is musical theatre. It is a play with songs (mostly well accompanied by Emma Darlow on guitar, violin or piano). There are quite long music-free stretches. Most of the music is quite simple and folksy with some harmony and occasional counterpoint but little depth. Another problem is that although some members of this cast (Laura Wickham in particular) are accomplished singers, others are not and some of the singing is occasionally out of tune. The words are commendably clear though.
And as for the venue, well visually it’s a winner. Open air work in the heart of Covent Garden, however, has to compete with very distracting extraneous noise from entertainers in the Piazza nearby. It is the cast’s credit that most of them rise above it most of the time and can be heard pretty clearly.
Susan Elkin
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