Dodie Smith’s dotty tale is perfect for a hummable musical
Musical I Capture the Castle Watford Palace Theatre
You take a particular risk in adapting I Capture the Castle. Such is the evergreen power of Dodie Smith’s much-loved, Thirtiesset novel about a dotty English family living in impoverished bohemia that its readers tend to identify extremely personally with Cassandra, the wistful, spirited 17-year-old narrator whose opening line, “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink”, is a classic of English literature.
Smith’s novel, in which Cassandra comes of age amid the leaky castle ruins leased by her bonkers father on a whim, is both a celebration of, and a gently ironic comment on, pretty much every romantically inclined heroine who ever lived. In Cassandra’s wild poetic soul and determined writerly ambitions, readers love to see a version of themselves.
Happily, this new musical, adapted by Teresa Howard, is blessed with a wonderful Cassandra in relative newcomer Lowri Izzard. She not only has a voice as clean and bracing as a mountain spring but embodies a budding mix of sensitivity, scorn and emotional tumult, even if she is not quite “Jane Eyre with a touch of Becky Sharp”, as the vicar in the novel so perfectly describes her. Amid the haphazard wooden scaffolding of Ti Green’s somewhat inelegant set, Izzard’s Cassandra juggles her heart’s temperamental betrayals while coolly observing the many indulgences of her peculiar family. These include Ben Watson as her impossible father, a reclusive literary genius paralysed by writer’s block; Suzanne Ahmet’s away-with-the-fairies stepmother Topaz, who likes to commune naked with nature; and her thorny elder sister Rose (Kate Batter), who yearns to possess peach towels and who, when the eligible American bachelor Simon comes to visit, ruthlessly – and disastrously – pounces.
Smith’s novel perfectly lends itself to the musical form: the language is melodic, the perspicacious narrative voice given to daydream. Thankfully, Steven Edis’s score is a cracker, combining lilting English folk, swing and cocktail jazz with some genuinely hummable tunes. Brigid Larmour’s muscular production is pleasingly stripped down and unshowy, too, with just the right grasp on these characters romantic delusions.
The lyrics, however, are the big let down. Howard may have done a tidy job on the adaptation, but she’s no librettist. Too many of the glibber, sillier songs – including a particularly long one about rain – get in the way. And I wish Howard had managed to incorporate more of Smith’s delicious sentences into her book. Too many particularly memorable ones are missing here.
Yet in placing Cassandra’s creative endeavour centre stage, this production cleverly retains the novel’s pathos while giving the ending a modern twist. Will it capture your heart? I reckon it will.