Last year I was very lucky to gain an official sister-in-law when my older brother married the very lovely Hannah. This year to celebrate their wedding anniversary they went to the theatre and so I asked Hannah if she's write a guest blog for me. Here it is...
Steve and I have been married for one year now, wahoo! Our anniversary was on Monday 13th August, and considering we were going on holiday soon after, we weren't sure what to do on the actual day. Needless to say we wound up booking tickets to see 'The lion, the witch and the wardrobe' by the Threesixty theatre company at Kensington Gardens!
We arrived at the matinee performance (during the school holidays) and immediately felt that we must have missed the small print specifying that all adults must be accompanied by a child. There were children everywhere. However, the cafe attached to the theatre with its tea, cake and popcorn soon caught our attention.
Inside the circular marquee, we sat around a central bare stage, which gave nothing away about what we could expect from the show, but very quickly the seats became full and a huge wardrobe arose from underneath the middle of the stage.
The scenery was very sparse, but projections on the marquee roof, and cast serving as impressive tree people were a refreshing way to set the scene. The four actors playing Lucy, Edward, Peter and Susan were suitably well spoken, bright eyed and bushy tailed, while the witch at times took on the typical pantomime villain. Sadly, although Mr Tumnus was given a couple of solos, these added nothing to the story and did not enhance his character in any way.
As for the story, it remained largely the same, and it’s questionable whether this predictability or the heat within the marquee, led to us both nodding off a couple of times! The action in the second half picked up though, especially within the scene where the dark side kill Aslan. Had we brought little ones with us I’m sure they would have been hiding behind our backs at this point, but I probably wouldn’t have helped considering I jumped out of my skin once or twice.
However, the highlight of the show was undoubtedly the portrayal of Aslan. Three actors manipulated a larger than life puppet lion with such fantastic precision making Aslan seem very real.
Overall it was a good production, with a 360 marquee making a great theatre setting. So if you get the chance to go to a Threesixty theatre company production I would definitely recommend it (maybe take a token child or two though)...
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