At The Old Rep, Birmingham
Review by Pete Millington
Best known for his three celebrated tales of the unexpected for kidlets, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG and James and the Giant Peach, it's fantastic to see one of our smaller provincial theatre companies take on this lesser known though equally Dahlesquely incredible tale, George's Marvellous Medicine for production at Birmingham's Old Rep Theatre.
Sir Barry Jackson's quaint little 383 seater 1913 theatre in the centre of Brum provided a fittingly intimate venue for this simple but engaging play which involved plenty of audience participation. As the families excitedly packed into the theatre, we were ushered into the stalls by a most charming Jamaican gent by the name of Norman who could almost have been a Roald Dahl character himself, so charming indeed that my wife ran back to offer him a Quality Street to which he very aptly responded by searching eagerly for the coconut eclair.
As the audience continued to shuffle along the rows of the Old Rep to their seats, the scene was already being set for us before the play had even begun with assorted farm noises and also by the wonderful set of George's tumbledown farmhouse on stage. The story is more straight forward than other Dahl classics, but was all the same most suitable for this family audience and featured plenty of eccentricity and some truly marvellous effects.
In a nutshell, George lives happily with his hard working parents on their farm when one day, much to everyone's disgruntlement, mum's very unpleasant mother decides to come and stay. An exasperated George is left to do the old lady's bidding, serving on her hand and foot, until his frustration gets the better of him and he decides to concoct a new medicine for his grandma made up of all sorts of extremely unlikely ingredients from pig pellets to lipstick. The resultant medicine proves to have quite unexpected affects, not least on grandma but subsequently on various farm animals including an 8 foot high chicken.
I won't give away any more of the story but suffice it to say that the ensuing onstage mayhem is wonderful. So much so that it wasn't just the kidlets in the audience that were shouting out at the players.
The production is by the Birmingham Stage Company, adapted by David Wood and directed by Phil Clark. George is played by young Scottish actor Clark Devlin, Grandma by Stoke born Erika Poole, Mum by Alison Fitzjohn, Dad by Tom Woodman and would you believe it the only other actor in this theatrical pandemonium is Jason O'Brien who plays the Giant Chicken. One is left to marvel at how O'Brien does not fall off the edge of the stage in the chicken suit... though if he ever does we can safely rest assured he will quite likely bounce back up.
Ingredients:
A charming and cleverly compact cartoon sketchbook set, astonishingly authentic Quentin Blake style characters brought to life, generous spoonfuls of fun, magic and humour along with some rather marvellous stage effects. Throw in a lively audience of kids of all ages (but especially the 4-10s maybe) and stir vigorously.
The result is entirely agreeable.
And if you are intending to go, make sure you take Norman a coconut eclair.
George's Marvellous Medicine is on at The Old Rep until the 6th February 2010.
Book tickets here:
http://www.oldreptheatre.org.uk/book.htm
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