MIRROR MAGIC MARKET TALES. To 4 January.
London.
MIRROR MAGIC MARKET TALES
by Chantal Schaul.
Riverside Studios (Studio 3) To 4 January 2009.
Mon-Sun 7.30pm Mat 20, 21, 24, 28-30 Dec, 3, 4 Jan 1pm.
no performance 25, 26, 31 Dec, 1 Jan. no evening performance 24 Dec.
Runs 2hr 5min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 8237 1111.
www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 December.
If you go down to this market today, you’re sure of quite a surprise.
Something offbeat at Riverside for Christmas. If the show Love and Madness play in Studio 3 ultimately seems closer to the lunacy than loving side of their name, it still intrigues. And certainly does what it says in the title.
There’s a market, though the only thing you actually come away with as you mooch pre-show round the stalls, is a ginger biscuit provided gratis. The rest is suspect stuff, from the fabrics through a strange collection of jams that are far less conventional than their jars. Among the stallholders is one who can only say Yes (result of a curse from his Nordic-god father) and another whose condition requires him to wear what are less spectacles than an entire mirror-avoiding optical system over his eyes.
These, together with a youthful trader from a town of the entirely bald, are helped on their journey to self-fulfilment, which means getting the girl as well as coming to terms with the way they are, by a couple of traders, butcher Perry and old gingerbread lady Moll. They’re doing this at the insistence of helpful yet slightly sinister man-from-the-mirror Otto to pay off several centuries’ bad luck their breaking of a mirror has brought upon them.
Though anyone trusting Perry, with his jams and jellies, and a wagon whose interior he keeps so secret, must be in a pretty jar of pickle to begin with. Lancashire Moll’s different – especially when she transmogrifies into delightful young Lily. Who turns out to be three Lilys, helping the respective young men develop their independent life stories.
Ultimately, the concept proves too complex for the good of the piece, weighting it down as events work through the complexities writer Chantal Schaul has included. It lacks an essential drive, a theatrical equivalent of the page-turning factor to hold the mix of fantasy and realism together.
How much it grips in this promenade production (a few seats are provided), with its pleasant performances played mainly on a raised central stage, is likely to depend on personal tastes. But its drawbacks are at least the result of ambition and originality.
Perry: Nick Earnshaw.
Yes: Richard Holt.
Will: Jack Roth.
Otto: Matthew Sim.
Lily: Jane Stanton.
Lionel: Craig Tonks.
Director: Neil Sheppeck.
Designer/Costume: Kelly Hogan.
Lighting: Paul Green.
2008-12-19 01:12:42