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 Ashley Smith as Kellyanne in Pobby and Dingan Pic: Douglas McBride |
Pobby and Dingan
Adapted by Rob Evans. A Catherine Wheels review.
IT takes a while to warm to this adaptation of Ben Rice's novel. For one thing, there doesn't seem to be much at stake: just an everyday family hoping to get lucky in Lighting Ridge, an opal mining town in the Australian outback. For another, the production by Catherine Wheels takes a straight-forward approach that rules out the kind of imaginative leaps that children's theatre does best. The initial impression of Gill Robertson's staging is of a routine domestic drama.
The Book of Beasts
By E Nesbit. Catherine Wheels review.
ONE LOOK at Gill Robertson's face and you know you're in for a feelgood time. Before the show has even begun, the actor and mainstay of Catherine Wheels theatre company seems to have caught everyone in the eye and made all of us her friend. In this adaptation of a children's story by E Nesbit (of Railway Children fame), she steps in and out of character, one minute drawing us into the tale as a wide-eyed narrator, the next playing a genial nurse in charge of a boy who would be king.
Something Wicked this Way Comes
By Ray Bradbury. Catherine Wheels review.
AS every reader of Pinocchio knows, there is not a boy who can resist the pull of a funfair. When the carnival comes to town it brings the promise of something magical, transgressive, illicit; the possibility of escaping everyday life for easy rewards and sensual pleasures. That is the allure of Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show when, heralded by the smell of candyfloss and a midnight lightning storm, it arrives in an Illinois backwater in Ray Bradbury's classic 1962 novel.
27 May 2007 Scotland on Sunday
Hansel and Gretel
By the company. Catherine Wheels review.
IT'S not often you get to see two versions of Hansel and Gretel in one day. Still rarer to see two promenade productions in which you go with the neglected children into the woods. But it's that time of year when the Bank of Scotland Children's International Theatre Festival takes over and normal rules cease to apply. With performances as good as Catherine Wheels' Hansel And Gretel and Grid Iron's Once Upon A Dragon, long may the anarchy continue.
 Cinderella's Sisters by Catherine Wheels Pic: Douglas McBride |
Cinderella's Sisters
By Mike Kenny. Catherine Wheels review.
ACCORDING to a recent study, women who have been abused by their partners are disproportionately likely to identify with Cinderella. The theory is that if your role model is a submissive fairytale character, you'll believe that love alone will be enough to end your frog-prince's violent behaviour. It depends, of course, whether you've been influenced by an insipid telling of the tale or a more plucky version in which the girl wins through because of skill and ingenuity. Either way, if you think Cinderella is a dubious role model, what hope her ugly sisters? However the story is told, the pair are the very archetype of selfishness, cruelty and bad behaviour. If you're concerned about body fascism just think of the damage caused by the idea that an ugly outside equals an ugly inside.
Cyrano
Jo Roets. Catherine Wheels review.
ONE London critic recently described Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac as “indestructible”. I think that’s right. There’s something about this story of a swashbuckling poet cursed with an enormously ugly nose that tugs at the heart strings every time. As if to prove the point, Catherine Wheels theatre company has come up with a version that condenses a three-hour play into 70 minutes and cuts the cast list down from 30-odd to just three. Does it work? Well, I can’t vouch for the audience of ten year olds (although their attention was undoubtedly held throughout), but I certainly left with a tear in my eye.
theatreSCOTLAND © Mark Fisher 2009–2010
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