Review: THE FAMOUS FIVE: A NEW MUSICAL, Chichester Festival Theatre
Enid Blyton's much loved gang get a 21st century makeover but lose as much as they gain as a result
By: Gary Naylor Oct. 26, 2022
Like me, many adults will have vague memories of Enid Blyton's Famous Five (mixed up with a bit of the Secret Seven and even a bit of the Comic Strip Presents...) but younger members of the audience may be meeting them for the first time. The good news is that one's level of familiarity with the source material for this joint production between Chichester Festival Theatre and Theatr Clwyd doesn't really matter - the musical (for good and ill) stands, like its eponymous heroes, on its own two feet.
Our quintet come together in Dorset for the summer holidays. Julian is the eldest, hovering insecure on the cusp on manhood; Dick is the mischievous middle one; Anne is the youngest, battling to make her voice heard; George is the tomboy cousin and Timmy is her adorable dog. Uncle Quentin is preoccupied with his experiments to save the world with a new source of energy (scientists in labs saving the world - very 2020) and ignores his poor George and love-suffering wife, Aunt Fanny. But when his villainous ex-collaborator, Rowena, turns up, the Famous Five must earn their name.
Theo Jamieson's melodies are pleasing on the ear - you certainly catch a bit of Sondheim in there, a touch of Eurovision popiness too and there's a super 11 o'clock number from the Dynasty shoulder-padded Kibong Tanji - but they would be better still if the band were not turned up to 11, just too loud for some of the singers. Too many songs concern the same coming-of-age problem of finding one's identity in a changing world - we hear the same psychodrama played out multiple times.
That repetition slows down the plot. Elinor Cook's book captures the characters and the optimistic post-war milieu in which the stories are set (no mobiles of course) and updating the underpinning issues to reflect 21st century attitudes is essential, but she loses Blyton's greatest asset along the way - her relentless driving forward of plot through clean exposition. Because we're told so much about what everyone is feeling, we don't get enough about what they are doing.
The largely young cast manage to walk the narrow line between being charming and irritating successfully. Isabelle Methven is splendid as the put-upon but resourceful Anne and Maria Goodman has the pipes to sing above the band as George. Sam Harrison provides plenty of comic relief as Bobby, who has something of a portfolio career in the village. Inevitably, Timmy captures the audience's hearts, Ailsa Dalling's puppet work well up to the high standards we've come to expect these days.
The rather neat Scooby Doo-style resolution doesn't quite fit with the level of jeopardy involved, laudable though its message of forgiveness and teamwork may be, another sign that the tone of the drama never sits quite right in its ambition to bring Blyton into 2022.
But family entertainment and the dread words "A New Musical" are not easy to do, so praise is due as Tamara Harvey's production gets far more right than it gets wrong. And, when I arrived just as the matinee house was leaving, there was a real buzz amongst the teens and tweens who had enjoyed a half-term treat. The proof of the pudding (and, true to its source, there are plenty of those in the show) is in the eating.
The Famous Five: A New Musical is at Chichester Festival Theatre until 12 November
Photo Credit: The Other Richard
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