The Secret Garden

Synopsis

We follow the story of Mary who finds herself alone and unwanted in a bleak Yorkshire manor house. A simple story of two children who bring about a wonderful transformation of a long forgotten garden and in turn when they share the secret of the hidden garden, the entire household is brought back to life and the sad ghosts of the past are laid to rest.

Our Review:

8 December 2009

The English nostalgia for imagined golden ages means that many children’s Christmas shows are adaptations of Victorian or Edwardian novels. Many are robust enough to survive in the 21st century, some even earn the epithet “ageless”, but Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden is not one of those.

The West Yorkshire Playhouse production is well acted and well sung with outstanding visual effects and imaginative use of a talented ensemble, but its impact is modest. The difficulty lies in the words, Hodgson Burnett’s, I suspect, rather than those of Garry Lyons who has adapted the novel economically. The use of multiple narrators linking short scenes is effective, but much of both narration and dialogue is trite and cliché-ridden. Characters are two-dimensional stereotypes, working out a schematic morality tale for good middle-class children.

A cast of 15, many multi-tasking, tells the story of Mary Lennox whose pampered ...

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