Howl's Moving Castle

Synopsis

Sophie is an 18 year old girl who toils in the hat shop opened years ago by her late father. One day she finds she has unexpectedly angered the evil Witch of the Waste and finds herself trapped within a spell that turns the young Sophie into an old woman. Sophie takes shelter in the home of Howl, a strange but flamboyant wizard whose magical castle can move between various lands and dimensions powered by Calcifer, a fire demon. She embarks on a journey to break her own spell and the one binding Howl and Calcifer together only to discover that there is a lot more to heartless Howl than meets the eye.

Our Review:

12 December 2011

This production at Southwark Playhouse is the first stage adaption of one of Diana Wynne Jones’s fantasy novels, however it comes as no surprise that it was also made into a successful animation by Japan’s Studio Ghibli in 2004.

The mystical tale lends itself incredibly well to movie-like treatment and this is clearly the prime focus of creative duo Davy and Kristin McGuire as they bring a Christmas extravaganza with a difference to Southwark’s iconic Vault.

Howl’s Moving Castle is the tale of Sophie, a young and beautiful hat maker with hidden depths, who unwittingly incurs the wrath of the Witch of the Waste and finds herself transported both into premature old age and the castle of the enigmatic and self-obsessed magician Howl, whose reputation for eating out the hearts of pretty young maidens (he is apparently something of a supernatural womaniser) goes before him.

The white cardboard castle set that domina...

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Latest User Review

coral - 13 December 2011:

Sounds bloody awful. Fry again....

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