BWW Reviews: ROOM ON THE BROOM, Garrick Theatre, August 2010

 

Room on the Broom is a modern classic, written by Julia Donaldson, the author of the Gruffalo and brought to the stage by the same company behind the show about everyone's favourite monster.

The production is lively and fun and even before the show has begun the cast are rushing through the auditorium playing a game of hide and seek.

The narrative of the book was carefully woven in with clever humour and some catchy songs to give the show a sense of adventure. We follow Morag, not the world's best witch, and her cat as they plan to seek out a dragon but along the way some of Morag's belongings get caught in the wind and with the help of cat she has to search for them. The items are all recovered with the assistance of a high energy dog who bounds around the stage, a hapless bird who had found itself lost on its trip south for the summer and an American frog on the run from a princess. In exchange for their aid they all beg for a space on Morag's broom much to the disapproval of cat. They travel together before coming across the fierce dragon who has a highly amusing Welsh accent.

The cast gave some impressive and humorous performances, I was particularly fond of the sullen cat Karina Garnett, who grew increasingly bad tempered as her relationship with the witch came under strain as more and more animals shared the broom. The show features some really wonderful puppets, particularly impressive was the dog puppet and how it was able to bound around the stage with such energy and then look at you with wide, endearing eyes. The set design was simple but drew the focus well and provided suitable places for the actors to duck and hide behind.

There could perhaps have been a greater opportunity for involving the children as some of them did seem a mite restless at times, but this could have been just this particular performance. As a side note I feel I should add that I find it shocking that at a busy Sunday morning performance full of families, the adults in the audience were by far the worse behaved. They sit and check their mobile phones and the two dads behind me even held a conversation throughout the performance. This is not only an appalling example to be setting to the younger members of the audience but it also ruins the performance for the whole audience which is a real shame as I, a fully grown adult (albeit with a childlike mindset) , thought this was charming and funny show.

 

 

 

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