Into The Woods

Having seen this musical a few times before I was able to follow this story and could appreciate the performances and, in particular, the stunning technical accomplishment of this production team. The setting was spectacular, working really well giving the cast plenty of space and levels to work on. The lighting enhanced and created some wonderful effects throughout, the props and scenery were magical and well handled by cast and crew, the costumes were ideal and the choreography was simple but very effective, being entirely in keeping with the feel of the piece using the cast and their abilities to the full. Andrew had a very good sounding band being melodic, within the confines of Sondheim’s music. I particularly liked the accompaniment for ‘Agony’. The beanstalk was very well thought out, Grandmother’s bed was an inventive prop, which worked well, and the cow added some humour to this rather dark fairy tale.

Lisa Falkner was a very strong Witch, putting light and shade into her musical numbers and commanding the stage with every entrance cleverly showing change between the evil Witch and other self.  ‘Last Midnight’ was very atmospheric. Cinderella was played by Rachel Farrant, acting and singing with great conviction and her Stepmother and Stepsisters, played by Tess Kennedy, Alicia Marson and Becky Munden, were all nicely evil, coping with blindness very cleverly. Martin Bracewell made a very charming Prince for Cinderella and Sam Taylor played Rapunzel’s Prince providing a huge contrast between them. The two created some good musical moments especially their brilliant rendition of ‘Agony’.  Chris Dale got good characterisation as the Baker, a big and very difficult part to maintain and Roz Hall as his wife was outstanding. I loved her scene with the prince and her rendition with Chris of ‘It takes Two’ was hilarious. Gus Quintero-Fryatt did well as Jack, a difficult part to play, and sang ‘Giants in the Sky’ particularly cleverly. His mother, Jane O’Sullivan was brilliant.  She stormed around the stage told Jack just what she thought of him and he in his turn obviously suffered from a love/hate relationship with this termagant of a woman. Becky Maynard portrayed the slightly crafty, not very bright, Little Red with good facial expression and very clear speech. The artful scene with the eating of the cakes from the bakery was great fun. Abi Hearn as Rapunzel accomplished her rather wailing music well, I liked Daniel Chandler’s interpretation of the Wolf, who leered at Red Riding Hood very nicely and his howl was quite blood curdling, Kev Summers was suitably mysterious as the mysterious man, Gregor Thompson performed convincingly as the steward and Jack Stone played a very important part keeping us all on track with this rather convoluted story.

 All the other members, too many to mention by name, gave splendid support to a great cast providing some interesting harmonies, which gave the music life. I loved the birds as they flapped while telling Cinderella important information, the sound effects were very realistic, especially the giants footsteps and the horrible crunch when he walked on people. In fact this was an excellent show which has finally converted me to like Sondheim.

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