So much about this show should have worked. It’s an adaptation for families of another book by the unstoppable pairing of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, brought to the Edinburgh Lyceum by Freckle Productions, the same team that created the enormously successful Stick Man and Zog. The music and song lyrics are by Joe Stilgoe, and the adaptation is done by the Lyceum’s own David Greig and Jackie Crichton. What’s not to like?
Far too much, I’m sorry to say. Perhaps the central problem is the original story. The picture book is fun, as anyone who has read it to kids will know, but it’s not exactly action packed, and that might explain this adaptation’s central problem: the dreadfully slack pacing. The story of the book is placed within a framing device of Mama Mouse teaching her children the importance of politeness, and the setup for this not-exactly-exciting scenario takes about 20 minutes before we get anywhere near the baddies themselves. The songs, which are bland and unmemorable, are far too long, particularly the interminable entrance song for the heroine, and they hold up the action terribly, draining it of any forward momentum. Several episodes, particularly one with a dancing cat, occur for seemingly no other reason than to pad out the show to the length of an hour.
All of this speaks of an overall lack of dramatic energy, perhaps stemming from the story’s central theme of the importance of good manners. Let’s all agree that that’s important, but this adaptation preaches rather than confides, never taking the audience into its confidence or inviting the kids knowingly to smirk at the moral message. Consequently, it’s like the show is being done to the audience rather than welcoming them into its sense of fun. It adds to the blandness that the slapstick is very tame, without any sense of comic edge or danger.
If I thought it was flat then I dread to think how the kids in the audience felt. There are a few (painfully laboured) moments of audience participation which struggle to get off the ground, and it was telling that, in the performance that I went to, the actions were mostly done by parents cajoling their kids to get involved.
The visuals are attractive enough, with brightly coloured stripes and polka dots all over the set, though I wonder if it’s a problem that the baddies on the stage don’t look much like those in the book? The ghost, in particular, looks like a camp Worzel Gummidge, and I worry that kids with a developed pictorial imagination will feel cheated.
The cast do the best they can with it, and Lottie Mae O’Kill brings a touch of Mary Poppins to the character of Mama Mouse. However, the material means they’re making bricks without straw, and the play as a whole is such a let-down for the simple reason that it loses sight of the basics that a successful drama needs: a strong plot, a pacey tempo, and a sense of energy. Even the youngest kids are shrewd enough to know that, and they deserve better than this.
