The wind isn’t rustling the willows anymore. In Dan Bird’s dystopian version of Kenneth Grahame’s beloved story, it’s more likely to be a clutch of carrier bags, since Ratty and Mole’s river has degenerated into toxic puddles in Southwark Playhouse’s dripping vaults.
Despite the huge-hearted performances, Bad Physics’ panto-flavoured children’s show never sheds the sour taste that this ill-fitting urban updating brings with it.
Toad’s obsession with the motorcar – ‘poop poop!’– remains undimmed. He hotwires and half-inches whatever he can, despite the best restraining efforts of Badger, Ratty and Mole. But Ferret and his weaselly accomplices are forever on hand to encourage him, tampering with his brakes and pretending, very badly, to be police, judge and jury when they catch him.
Many of the jokes sag slightly, and the show’s inner logic is sometimes unsound, but the performances are uniformly strong and Bird’s direction is full of inventive theatricality. The final scene, in which the cast kill each other in every conceivable genre, is barnstormingly brilliant: proof of this company’s latent greatness.