| Wonderman: “A Show that Delights and Entrances” |
At National Theatre Wales |
| GaggleBabble, National Theatre Wales & Wales Millennium Centre , Tramshed Cardiff , September 14, 2016 |
“Wonderman” caused a stir at Edinburgh, below 12th August 2016. Wales Arts Review was at the Tramshed: “It is Voltaire who, perhaps surprisingly, is also tying Dahl to the increasingly sophisticated chaos of Gagglebabble, the Cardiff-based company co-founded by Lucy Rivers and Hannah McPake in 2012. “Gagglebabble’s uproarious tribute to Dahl takes a similar stand. There are words that hold Roald Dahl, Voltaire and Gagglebabble together in a grip – “macabre”, “dark” – funny. So often with the work of Gagglebabble, you find yourself recoiling, looking away, as you laugh. “Wonderman has all the hallmarks of a Gagglebabble production – a narrative fighting for stage time with a jazz-hands cabaret show. There is an enormous amount of talent packed onto a small stage for a brief time, and it’s sometimes an overwhelming experience to see it all showcased. But here, the matching with Dahl seems a fit recipe. “Four stories of Roald Dahl’s – for adults, which means they are stories that made it into his Tales of the Unexpected television series that first aired in 1979 – recreated here as the delusions of a comatose hospital patient, framed by one of Dahl’s early literary successes, “Beware of the Dog”. A live band take the stage – a staple of Gagglebabble shows – and the actors break into song and pick up instruments as they go about their roles. It is a gaudy spectacle of a show, and Dahl – and no doubt Voltaire – would have mightily approved. “One of the joys of watching a Gagglebabble production is feeling the influences come through the fabric of the show. Wonderman is in essence a nod to the portmanteau horror movies of the late sixties and early seventies, the ones that Hammer Studios dabbled in, but which were most successfully concentrated on by Amicus. Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected are in fact ready made for such treatment – short, impactful, self-contained tales of grimness with a weird twist in the tale. It was not unusual for writers of the weird and macabre to find their work suiting quick fire television plays. “And the talent involved in Wonderman is never in doubt. This, in every quarter, seems to be a significant step up from previous shows – Gagglebabble well on its way to fulfilling its early promise. It is perhaps down to the faith shown in them by National Theatre Wales and the Wales Millennium Centre that means somebody of the calibre of Amy Leach can come to the director’s chair, freeing up Rivers and McPake to focus on their strengths. There is all around a feeling that for all the onstage chaos, Wonderman is Gagglebabble stepping into maturity, taking the respect of industry peers and turning it into something tangible. “Much of what should be written at this point has been written before, and by me: in Lucy Rivers Welsh theatre has a major talent; Hannah McPake has developed into a powerful stage presence, capable of sweeping moments of high camp; Daf James should be underestimated at your peril. “This is nothing new, even if Wonderman might suggest a stepping up of gears. If Wales had a national theatre awards worthy of the name, these three, and Gagglebabble, would be annual fixtures, dominating nominations for the foreseeable future. “And with Wonderman we can now add another. In Adam Redmore Welsh theatre may be seeing the emergence of a very rare thing indeed: a bona fide leading man. James is athletic, dashingly handsome, and even when breaking-down has an eminent charm about him. It is a shame that when penning the script, Daf James did not give him more to do. The Dahl character, who fulfills the central roles of the embedded stories, has action thrust upon him rather than forces action himself – he is always a passive presence. And yet Redmore manages to keep things swirling around him. There is certainly no problem in imagining this is the dashing Dahl of the post-war years who would go on to become a “bit of a lady’s man” when on secondment to Washington in just a few years, and then marry a Hollywood A-lister in Patricia Neal. “James’ script is a feat in itself. Taken almost wholesale from Roald Dahl’s own words, it is a largely successful exercise in fitting a large idea into a small space. If there are downsides to the show – and it is far from perfect despite being hugely enjoyable – it is in the suspicion the material when deployed into the concept is diluted by over-ambition. Wonderman was always conceived with one eye on the Edinburgh Fringe, and the easiest way to secure a booking up there is to promise a show that comes in under an hour (okay, so it’s filled out with half hour of cabaret, but this is just warm-up and not part of the narrative). “The idea that becomes Wonderman could have done with a little more breathing space than that restriction allows. It moves too fast at times, particularly between “dream” segments, and not everything makes sense. This is not helped tonight by below-par sound production on the actor’s voices, and the fact that it was clearly an error to deliver the most complex story of the lot (the bizarre, largely unfathomable “Pigs”) entirely in song. “For some of us, Gagglebabble were the most exciting prospect in Welsh theatre from about 15 minutes into A Bloody Ballad (2012). Perhaps, with such a formidable array of disparate talent, Gagglebabble will forever only produce the “best of all possible” shows; but I suspect somewhere down the line is a subject that will, in the hands of Rivers and McPake, give us a show that is even better than what we thought possible. * * * * The Sprout was there: “Fresh from their stay at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the multi-award-winning theatre company, Gagglebaggle has arrived at the Tramshed to give their unique take on the adult short stories of Roald Dahl in Wonderman. “From start to finish Wonderman is a show that delights and entrances its audience. The seating is arranged around several candle-lit tables, the band reminiscent of a New Orleans jazz group resplendent in the appropriate night-club attire of bow-ties and dinner jackets warms up from the back of the room. “The musicians move to the stage to warm up with several standards before directing our attention towards a handsome RAF pilot sat at the bar. He is the young Roald Dahl and he is to be our conduit into this colourful roller-coaster ride of the magnificent and the macabre which begins with Dahl’s counterpart drifting in and out of several of his most infamous stories set to music. “Among the more famous of his stories that make noted appearances during this performance are Dahl’s Beware of the Dog where a sick RAF pilot doesn’t believe that he is in Brighton; The Landlady where a poor unfortunate traveller gets more than he bargained for. "Elsewhere the comical and the terrifying meet in Man from the South where an American sailor must strike his lighter ten times without fail or else he loses his left little finger; Pig, where an impressionable vegetarian chef’s new-found curiosity in how pork is made puts him in right dead lumber. “The show’s musical and theatrical high-point comes towards the end with Lamb to the Slaughter where a wife’s heartbroken spirit leads her to murdering her husband with a frozen leg of lamb. It is a moment that is mixed with exactly the right amount of emotional pathos and lyrical beauty. “These moments are all wonderfully imbued with excerpts from Dahl’s time spent recovering in hospital from his infamous plane crash in Libya during the war. The show ends as the newly recovered Dahl glistening away page after page with his new-found talent for writing. “With a small but dedicated cast of obvious Dahl fanatics, Wonderman is a show that deserves to be remade in the West End or Broadway with a huge cast and a great music score to accompany what is already a marvellous story and script.” Abridged from the full reviews which can be read at: https://www.walesartsreview.org/theatre-wonderman/ https://thesprout.co.uk/blog/review-wonderman-tramshed/ |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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