Wind in the Willows

Synopsis

The tale of Mole, Ratty, Badger and the incorrigable Mr Toad (poop poop!). A grand tale of friendship, a crazed toad and adventure in the High Woods.

Our Review:

22 December 2003

It wouldn't be hard to be curmudgeonly about the WYP's offering of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows for Christmas. For a start, it's not particularly a Christmas show - although it does offer a charming scene of snow falling over carol singers to send us glowing into the interval.

And then, it's chastening to recall that there is much inner city and council estate deprivation within a mile radius of the Playhouse - what are those members of its community supposed to make of this Edwardian rural idyll with its prep school ethos? Speaking of which, it would appear that only rabbits (wouldn't you just know it?) and squirrels are programmed to procreate, since everyone else on the riverbank and in the wild wood is manifestly male. Not a lot in it for the distaff side, don't you know?

But I say, hang on, chaps, the script is, after all, written by the Playhouse's adopted house hack Alan Bennett and so stuffed like a plum pudding with killer ...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (195.92.168.173) - 8 February 2004:

This is no doubt a minority opinion but I found the show very hard to like. Grahame's novel and Shepherd's illustrations were part of my childhood, and something tells me that many of the delighted customers at the WYP were not familiar with the book. Alan Bennett's additional dialogue is full of anachronisms, most of them deeply unfunny, and Dick Bird's set is ingenious but unmagical - the snow-free Wild Wood is about as frightening as an adventure playground and Mole's house is every bit as ugly as Ratty thinks it is. Some costumes succeed in making the actors look like animals without the use of heavy makeup or masks, others don't; a few are merely silly (what the heck was a 1940's WAAF rabbit doing making tea at Badger's strategy-planning meeting? Although Toad's car was also distinctly un-Edwardian...) The reliable Malcolm Scates was Toad to the life, Cameron Blakely was a fine Badger, Dominic Green stole the show as the miserable Brummie horse Albert but I found Ratty and Mole merely irritating. As for the final song and dance number - why? It felt as phoney and tacked on as the cringeworthy, illusion-destroying chase through the auditorium. A sadly wasted opportunity. ...

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