RED RIDING HOOD. To 24 January.

London

RED RIDING HOOD
by Patrick Prior Music by Robert Hyman

Theatre Royal, Stratford East To 24 January 2004
Tue-Sat 2.15pm Thu-Sat 7.15pm also 5 January 2.15pm, 21 January 7.15pm
Audio-described 14 January 2.15pm
BSL Signed 15 January 2.15pm
Runs 2hr 15min One interval

TICKETS: 020 8534 0310
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 January

Colourful, streetwise - punchy, pacy pantomime.Nick Barnes' bright set with its colourful, rotating fairground wheel won't fool anyone for long. From the early moment when Glyn Graiment's (personality rather than visual effects driven) Grandmother/Dame unleashes her fast-paced warm-up song, the beat stays strong. Patrick Prior's script may not have a lot of one-liner wit, but it's an ace carrier for the highly-flavoursome performances.

Like Praveen Sond's high-energy heroine, a young woman keen to get down there and out on the streets. Or into the forest; anywhere away from the maternal apron-strings to which sickly-sweet sister Prudence (unselfish played by Nicole Worica) clings.

Red has the highest energy number in Robert Hyman's energetic score, as well as participating in the superb seduction song with chief Wolf Lorenzo Lupine who eyes out his prey as a fairground mountebank - and sidekick Magradora.

She's evil as the worst, but not quite a leader; Magradora's the one to give up at the difficulties which make her boss most determined. In a beautifully contrasted diabolic duo, Jo Melville has the up-to-date manner, quick-change expressions and darting moves of the hands-on operative, offset by Peter Straker's magnificently self-admiring Lorenzo. Aging cool-dude, granddaddy-o of would've-been hipsters, this vulpine smoothy's forever letting verbal cats out of the bag as he tries to lure tasty human morsels into his digestive system.

In which he succeeds. Granny goes by the interval, and Red during act two, in a master-stroke theatrically fearsome assault scene and fake-ending: curtain down, The End' projected, Straker overcoming the hiss/boos to try and send us home.

Which is where the action goes internal. From somewhere that looks like his mouth but ought to be Lorenzo's stomach, the audience is asked to raise a storm of nausea - neatly prepared in the death scene - to vomit Dame, Red and the 3 Little Pigs (don't ask) back into external reality (Shout! Shake! Make that Wolfie heave'), where Red and Prudence gain new, mutual respect.

Shame not to see more of Marcus Thomas's fleet-footed, mystical balloon-man. Otherwise, a fine, inclusive experience, to be taken at different levels by various ages in the audience.

Father: Mark Beer
Galatea: Cora Bissett
Augustus: Daryl Branch
Granny: Glyn Grimstead
Mother: Marcia Mantacek
Magradora: Jo Melville
Fairground Workers/Wolves: Rameeka Parvez, Abdul Shayev
Red Riding Hood: Praveen Sond
Lorenzo the Wolf: Peter Straker
3 Little Pigs/Balloon Seller/Old Man: Marcus Thomas
Prudence: Nicole Worica

Director: Kerry Michael
Designer: Nick Barnes
Lighting: Paul Anderson
Sound: Chris Whelan
Musical Director: Robert Hyman
Choreographer: Jason Pennycooke
Associate director: Dawn Reid
Design assistant: Yukiko Tsakamoto

2004-01-04 16:08:48