Theatre walks on the wild side
Whacking weasels? Creation’s riverside quest for Toad Hall is animal magic
The Wind in the Willows at Sunnymead Meadow, Oxford
July 24 – August 8
AFTER a year-and-a-half of innovations in online live theatre which has resulted in a feature in Boundless Creativity, a new Government report on sustainable theatre, Creation Theatre returns to outdoor performances with Helen Eastman’s fun, interactive adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.
Staged by Eastman in the delightful ‘wild wood’ surroundings of Sunnymead Meadow, north Oxford, and nestled in a curve of the
River Cherwell, small groups of theatregoers are safely funnelled around the site in a quest to help Toad recover Toad Hall from the grasp of the squatting weasels.
Many children have grown up enjoying Eastman’s Christmas plays in the Burton Taylor studio where her calling card is the involvement of the youngsters in co-creating the piece by undertaking tasks.
Here, cheekily, Eastman channels pandemic iconography in her challenges to the audience, references picked up by the parents, but not their offspring.
Instead of Boris Johnson’s policy of whacking a mole, adventurous tots are encouraged by the bemused Badger (Al Barclay) to hit a weasel with a light baseball bat after it pops out of a tube.
The entire party is taught a simple
‘hands, face, space’ dance routine designed to frighten the uncouth Weasel (Andy Owens), an exercise we’ll have to get right some time in the show because we are warned the weasel will attack us in the meadow. Towards the end of the production, Hedgehog (Stanley Thomas), a journalist, passes around a Freedom Day front page of his newspaper, designed with a gap for the children in which children can draw pictures of the final battle between Weasel and Toad (Guy Clark).
We see Mole (Claire Redcliffe) recycle items in a ditch and Rabbit (Lola Boulter) display underpants on a washing line as she explains how Toad escaped from prison wearing female clothing.
It’s a delightful family show. Hannah writes: I went fishing for ducks in a bush; at each scene we were given things to hand over to the other ‘animals’ ahead of us, and to sing songs and do movements; if there was a weasel, we had to do ‘hands face space’ and curl up into a ball.
My favourite animals were the evil ones, Weasel, and Ratty (LaSharne Anderson), who was in a boat, because she was joyful.
I thought it was cool going to a play where you are walking around.
...adventurous tots are encouraged by the bemused Badger (Al Barclay) to hit a weasel with a light baseball bat after it pops out of a tube