From Harry Potter to Peter Pan, stages this summer are awash with enchantment. It's just a shame, argues Nell Frizzell, that the magic of theatre can be so easily ruined by an ill-fitting harness and bout of fairy gastroenteritis...
I am about as magical as a fart in a box.
Watching grown men in waistcoats fiddle with hankies and cards brings me all the joy of a pair of knickers made of nettles. I can’t abide riddles, I don’t believe in fairies and crystals bring me out in a rash. As for wizards, they should all go back to their accountancy jobs in Nuneaton, buy some deodorant and check into velvet rehab.
And yet, sit me in front of Peter Pan and I cannot help but turn in to some sort of twinkly-eyed sprite. A twinkly-eyed sprite with the hair of a late-70s Noddy Holder and shoes like breeze-blocks, I grant you. But there is something about that moment when those dog-supervised children discover they can fly that gets me right in the ventricles. Which is why I am so terribly pleased to hear that York Theatre Royal will be hosting Mike Kenny’s new adaptation of Peter Pan. After the triumph of The Railway Children in Waterloo station and The Wind in the Willows, this Victorian tale of negligent parents, interracial romance and attempted infanticide is bound to be a real cockle-warmer.
Let’s just hope they get those harnesses up to scratch. Because, let’s face it, nothing ruins the magic of live theatre like a strained crotch and maniacally flapping child. Especially when pyjamas are involved.
You see, bringing magic to the stage is more pitted with potential failure than a first date at a Tea Party convention. A Midsummer Night’s dream may be a festival of Shakespearean frolics, but get a stomach bug halfway through an outdoor production while playing Titania - as my poor Cornish friend once did - and you can find yourself living in a world of backstage pain. Luckily for The Southwark Playhouse, their site-specific production is taking place in the well-facilitated Bermondsey Hotel rather than on a stately home lawn.
Less well provided for, perhaps, will be the Duke Theatre’s promenade performance of Merlin and the Legend of King Arthur, which will be taking place in Lancaster’s Williamson Park. As I said, I feel about wizards the way most people feel about shingles, but even I am keeping my fingers crossed that old Merlin doesn’t get caught short halfway to Camelot.
Now, even when bacteria and botched stage management don’t conspire against you, there is always the daunting prospect of some apparently bewitched prop. How many productions have been foiled by missing swords, broken doors, Teflon moustaches, misplaced crash mats and un-ringing phones? How many times has the magic of suspended disbelief been shattered by a stray shoe, an un-glimmering flame or a non-firing gun? Or, in the case of one friend, a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof been ruined by a collapsing double bed, before Big Daddy’s birthday cake catches on fire and the entire cast has to rush to douse it with some emergency sand.
Perhaps, when it comes to bringing the supernatural to the stage, your best bet is to simply rely on the audience’s imagination. After all, who ever looked good in a harness?
Image by Narcsville.
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