The Light Princess – Albany Deptford

Picture: Alex Brenner

The Light Princess continues at the Albany Deptford, London until 24 December 2023.

Star rating: two stars ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩

The Light Princess is a devised three-hander about a princess in a country called Sneachta who is “different” because she can float, which in this context means fly. Her mother despairs but eventually accepts this otherness, once her daughter has found a supportive friend.

It’s marketed as “a grown-up musical for all the family” with specific mention of ages three to seven in the small print. Actually the sophisticated ideas it tries to convey – at some length – are way too complex for most pre-schoolers. The young children in the two families behind me were literally running about the back of the theatre, totally disengaged, which is pretty distracting for anyone, of any age, able or wanting to watch the show and think about the issues.

And that’s a pity because there’s some good work here. Three talented women play a range of roles but mostly we get Jasmine May Rose as Orla, Sasha Marks as the Princess and Stephanie Callow as the Queen.

The show is carefully inclusive. There’s an arc-shaped caption screen above the stage on which all the dialogue appears. It’s a good idea to use different fonts and colours for the songs.

A camera is used intermittently as part of the action so that the audience can see close-ups of the action, projected next to the captions. It doesn’t add much to the show, except during the swimming scene when it allows us to see the fishes, but it’s a natty idea.

The Light Princess is advertised as having integrated audio-description throughout. It doesn’t. The three actors describe themselves at the beginning and, of course, some of the dialogue makes it clear what’s happening but I doubt that it would have been enough for a visually impaired child to feel fully involved.

Callow is convincing as a woman burdened with responsibilities and a lot of maternal anxiety. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” and hers is rather nice furry job because Sneachta is meant to be a very cold place.

Marks gives us a suitably floaty princess. Of course there’s no actual flying in this show but there’s a great deal of arm waving and a rather engaging puppet scene although, set in a mini theatre formed by opening part of the set, it is a long way from most of the audience.

Rose is a wheelchair user, who sometimes acts as a quasi narrator and then becomes the Princess’ friend when they fly, and eventually swim together. Like the other two she sings well and the dance scenes are nicely choreographed around her nifty on-wheels movement.

Through all this we touch on inclusion, friendship, kindness and a lot more, including a rather laboured turnip theme which doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of it.

Considering that age recommendation, there isn’t much concession in the vocabulary used either. There’s a joke which plays on “light-fingered” and “light-handed” and words such as “empathy” and “reckless” are thrown into the mix.

At one point we are firmly told that the rules for the newly discovered happy land are no bullying, no littering, no war and everyone is included. It suddenly feels as if we’re at a school council meeting devising a behaviour code. This show was partly developed in partnership with primary schools and sometimes it shows.

There are a number of quite good songs but some of them are self indulgently long. This show could be pared from 65 minutes down to 45 and would be much better for it. The prologue, for example, is quite entertaining, but it has little bearing on what follows.

The best thing in The Light Princess is the chant which the cast teaches the audience at the beginning to scare the bears off and which recurs several times. It’s rhythmic, catchy, memorable, fun – and suitable for all ages (writer and director is Barra Collins, composer and sound designer is Ellie Isherwood).

It’s a show which tries too hard. There are some good ideas, probably enough for several shows, but you can’t throw them all at a young audience at once and expect it to work for everyone.

Susan Elkin