Trippy-dippy musical has the little bit of magic we need
REVIEW
Pippin
Garden Theatre, London HHHH✩
FEW would say Pippin is Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz’s finest work. The away-with-thefairies mix of hippy pastoralism and winsome medievalism – concerning the son of tyrannical King Charlemagne’s search for fulfilment – has never had much success here. But perhaps its romanticism answers a need of the times, for this stripped-back version from director Steven Dexter at the al fresco Garden Theatre works like a charm.
On a tiny stage wreathed in fairy lights and incense, six actors, looking like extras from
Hair, carry the action. Pippin (a beguilingly wide-eyed Ryan Anderson) is seduced into believing he is destined for a life far beyond the ordinary and duly embarks on a quest to find it.
Military triumph, patricide, kingship and copious amounts of sex disappoint him. But still the siren call of Tsemaye BobEgbe’s Leading Player, a devil in a boho blouse, encourages his hubris. The story, which has shades of Pericles, reaches for the mythic but is so smothered in trippy-dippy mysticism it’s impossible to take at face value.
Yet Dexter’s production boasts tight routines, bonkers comedy and excellent performances – including Harry Francis’s witless strongman and Strictly winner Joanne Clifton as a libidinous granny who belts out a cracking version of No Time At All.
The score, meanwhile, is reproduced on a single keyboard by Michael Bradley, and gurgles away like a stream. It’s bleak out there, but in this tiny pub garden there’s a little bit of magic.