Is this the most gorgeous theatre in the world? Well no not always. I've spent miserable hours in the rain here, shivering under layers of plastic. But on a hot summer’s night, when little starry lamps light up the trees and the air is heavy with the scent of thousands of roses, then it is ridiculously idyllic. And a ridiculously apt setting for Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel about the restorative magic of nature, ‘The Secret Garden’.
Like anything that was written by a white person a hundred years ago, Hodgson Burnett's novel contains assumptions which may offend contemporary audiences. This free adaptation by directors Holly Robinson and Anna Himali Howard decolonises its source material with a deft hand. As in the book, sullen and spoiled heroine Mary Lennox is orphaned in India and sent to her uncle’s cold house in Yorkshire, where she learns how to be a decent human being through finding and caring for her dead aunt’s secret son and even more secret rose garden. Unlike the book, Mary’s mother and aunt are Indian not English, beautiful twin sisters who have scandalously married an English Lord and his brother, an officer of the Raj.
Hodgson Burnett’s novel already quotes from and is inspired by Indian fables and legends. Robinson and Himali Howard lean into this, making it less uptight and white, more hybrid and colourful. Indian and English characters cluster onstage, narrating the story in a charmingly ramshackle cluster of different perspectives. ‘It starts in India’, proclaims one of the sisters. ‘It starts in England’, argues an Englishman. ‘No, it starts in a garden,’ insists another. Actually it takes flight from all of those places, and cultures and storytelling styles from India are intertwined into Hodgson’s English garden story like rambling roses. In a brilliant stroke, the bird who shows Mary the garden is played by her dancing sari-clad aunt (the wonderful Sharon Phull), whose red-painted palm is the red breast of the robin.
This is a non-hierarchical production and each character is distinctly realized by excellent actors who pass to each other happily and skilfully, never dropping a beat. Hannah Khalique-Brown is outstanding as Mary Lennox – imperious and fragile and very funny. Brydie Service is a joy as Dickon, local Yorkshire lad and animal whisperer. The crows, squirrels and foxes befriends are brought to astonishing life from shawls and fur collars, puppeteered hilariously by other members of the ensemble. A fake set could never upstage the gorgeous real garden that surrounds this theatre and the designers wisely don’t try: the transporting effect of the secret garden conveyed by clever lighting that illuminates the onlookers’ faces.
Burnett’s novel is a story about the regenerative power of love and gardening: in it, Mary’s cousin Colin has been neglected by his father and abused by his anxious doctor because they are terrified he will die if he is allowed out of bed. Consequently he is a tyrannical hypochondriac who is wrongly believed to be incapable of walking – until Mary takes him out fresh air and pruning therapy. This adaptation rewrites Burnett's miraculous tearjerker ending as a modern moral of accepting your limits and deserving love despite them. Unlike in the book, Colin will never learn to do without his wheelchair.
That’s all good - but the adaptation doesn’t leave it at that, and overwhelms the world it has so thoughtfully created with a tonne of extra corrections piled into the last act. Colin’s uncles both have non-ableist epiphanies too. A new freedom fighting aunt shows up late in the day and shames the cold British gents. Worse, Dickon and Colin, who are children, share an icky romantic kiss, across the class barriers. This tangle of box ticking could definitely be cut back a bit. But doesn’t not dent the creative ebullience of a charming and lovely production which will send you out into Regent’s park with a tear in your eye and a smile on your face.
