Sure, it’s notionally aimed at families. But the National Theatre’s Roald Dahl adaptation ‘The Witches’ really is for everyone, (everyone over eight anyway). Because it’s quite easily the funniest new musical London has seen since at least ‘The Book of Mormon’.
It sees writer Lucy Kirkwood and director Lyndsey Turner - two heavyweight Brit talents who’ve never been involved with a musical before – join forces with cult US composer Dave Malloy to create something that’s singularly fun, further elevated by an absurdly good, galacticos-grade cast.
Dahl’s original 1988 novel is a slyly funny parable, as is Dahl’s wont. But Kirkwood and co stamp down on the accelerator and go hell for leather with the yucks.
It’s not that it’s not scary: in the superbly staged opening number, a series of at first benign, begloved ladies reveal that they are in fact witches: they transform from sweet to black eyed and sinister with just a flick of Bruno Poet’s excellent lighting and a swish of Stephen Mear’s subtle, evocative choreography.
But to reiterate the point, any scares are largely overridden by how spectacularly fun it is. After unsentimentally bumping off 11-year-old hero Luke’s parents in a car crash at the beginning, it takes a headlong dive into the cartoonish with the arrival of musical theatre heavyweight Sally Anne Triplett, having the time of her life as his shit-kicking, cigar-chomping Norwegian grandmother. She soon sings the bemused lad a song about the dangers of witches before having a heart attack that leads to the pair of them being sent to a ropey Bournemouth hotel for her to recuperate – unaware that it’s playing host to the annual conference of English witches.
There they’re greeted by uppity hotelier Mr Stringer, played by the great Daniel Rigby – surely British theatre’s greatest comic actor – as a cross between Basil Fawlty and a gazelle, bounding weightlessly about the stage as he bullies his poor guests and fawns over his rich ones.
And I can’t miss out Katherine Kingsley, phenomenal as the self-regarding, ludicrously Nordic-accented Grand High Witch who wearily taps at her phone while occasionally immolating her dimwit minions.
Furthermore: the kids! I’m a bit wary of going on about specific child actors in a review given they’re rotated night on night. But they were truly first rate on press night. Bertie Caplan gives an adult-level, superbly charming performance as spirited hero Luke, while Cian Eagle-Service devours his big Fosse-style number as sweet-obsessed posh boy Bruno. Give them a decade and these boys are either going to be global celebrities or running the country.
It also looks amazing: colourful and inventive, from the early use of creepy animations to a gloriously Tim Burton-esque section in which the Grand High Witch outlines her plan and endless inventive ways to depict mice on stage. It’s sterling work from a creative team headed by designer Lizzie Clachlan, with videos from Ash J Woodward.
I’m conscious I’ve just listed stuff that’s good, and I think the blessing and the curse of ‘The Witches’ is that it’s exactly the sum of its parts - and at the moment its parts are pretty incredible. Kirkwood’s book is not even slightly deep, but it is a scream, a gleefully flippant update of the novel. It’s not nearly as big-hearted as ‘Matilda’, but then it’s not trying to be. On the other hand, it’s quite well-judged: Dahl was famously a raging antisemite and ‘The Witches’ has been accused of peddling dodgy conspiracy tropes. Changes to the title characters’ physical disfigurements and the explicit depiction of the Grand High Witch as Nordic and blonde feels like it tamps that angle down (though it’s not for me to say if you’d find it offensive or not).
Malloy’s percussive songs are smart, melodic and funny. Again, there’s not a lot for him to get stuck into emotionally, but he does a fine job articulating Kirkwood’s wordy lyrics. She’s not a pop chorus writer, but it’s certainly not one of those shows where the laughs stop the second somebody stops singing and some of the songs are truly joyful in their misanthropy.
Is ‘The Witches’ a great musical or an amusing musical blessed with an obscenely good cast and creative team? The honest answer is I don’t know, and we may only find out if it has a life beyond this relatively short Christmas run. Whatever the case, the NT has thrown absolutely everything it has at ‘The Witches’, and the results are pure magic.