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Theatre Review A tale based on magic that lacks… magic

Unfortunately this seasonal family show will not add to the company’s past triumphs, writes GORDON PARSONS

The Magician’s Elephant
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon

FOR their first live main house Stratford theatre production in 18 months and with Christmas coming up, the RSC needed another Matilda-type smash hit.  

To decide on a stage adaptation of US prize-winning children’s author, Kate DiCamillo’s fable about a boy’s search for a lost sister aided by an elephant, already earmarked for a Netflix animated film, must have seemed a cert.

Oddly, for a tale based on magic, that is what this show lacks.

Set in a colourless town, apparently deep in a post-war depression, our young hero Peter, living with an ex-soldier suffering from PTSD and preparing for the next war, dreams of finding a sister he has been told died at birth.

A fairground fortune teller, conjured from his imagination, tells him to follow the elephant, which duly arrives dropping through the roof of the opera house after an incompetent stage magician’s act goes wrong.

When the elephant, a magnificent, life-sized puppet, seems to offer the hope of answers to their dreams, the world-weary townsfolk impede Peter’s search and imprison the poor creature literally dying for its freedom.

Jack Wolfe’s Peter leads a large, talented cast including Forbes Masson’s manic police chief and Summer Strallen’s overbearing Countess, while Amy Booth-Steel’s Narrator assures us that this is all true!

There is, of course, a happy ending to this sombre tale adapted by Nancy Harris and Marc Teitler.

However, apart from Francesca Jaynes’ splendid choreography and, of course, the upstaging elephant, Sarah Tipple’s production, although aided by the theatrical expertise one expects from an RSC showpiece, never fully takes off.

Marc Teitler’s music and lyrics have a sameness which helps to create this dreamscape which may well reflect our somewhat melancholy monotone, Covid-ridden world and we all certainly need a magic elephant, but, despite all the effort, this seasonal family show will unfortunately not add to the company’s past triumphs.

Ends January 1 2022. Box office rsc.org.uk.

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