Whistle Down the Wind (tour)
In the forty-plus years since Mary Hayley Bell first wrote her bestselling
children’s novel, Whistle Down the Wind has been turned into an extremely successful movie and is often studied as an examination text. In its most recent incarnation, Andrew Lloyd Webber recreated it as a hit musical.
The original story was set in rural northern England in the 1950s, but the
musical is rooted in an American farming community. The tale is told
through the children of the small township, whose world is full of
secrets, unanswered questions and completely different to the parallel
adult environment. The stranger (The Man) who appears in the children’s barn
could indeed be Jesus, returning again to live amongst them, rather than an
escaped murderer from the local penitentiary. Is he the one to answer all
their questions, to fulfill all their dreams, to explain the inexplicable?
Discovered by 15-year old Swallow and her younger sister and brother, the
wounded refugee tries to live up to the siblings’ spiritual needs. They
have just lost their mother and the young family is trying hard to come to terms
with this loss. They demand bible stories and are rewarded with tales of
Elijah and Godzilla, Doris Day and John the Baptist – “What a team!”
Eloquently told in song by The Man Tim Rogers, the tales don’t quite fill
the bill and the children’s rote-learning of “Ask and it shall be given
unto you” doesn’t seem to them to ring true.
Our story tells of revivalist meetings where Christians prove their faith by
being bitten by snakes, with a subplotted James Dean wannabe on his newly
painted bright blue motorbike not quite getting the girl – who happens to be
a black waitress with more sense. The storyline is woven around themes of
good and evil, children’s dreams versus adult actuality, sugary-sweet Sunday
school standards against the reality of racial tension, poverty, depression
and hardship.
As always, Lloyd Webber’s music is haunting, yet vibrant, if not truly showstopping. The staging of this new production by Bill Kenwright is particularly economic and so static as to be almost concert-style. Katie Rowley-Jones, making her professional stage debut as Swallow, gives a fine performance. With sensitivity she portrays her relationships with her newly widowed father, her would-be wooer and The Man. Unfortunately the majority of the cast appears never to have met each other before, each performing in their own private world and space.
Bold, but unexciting, sets combine with authentically dull 1950s costumes to
complete this somewhat slow-paced production.
Annie Dawes (reviewed at Plymouth Theatre Royal)
