A magical, terrifying treat
T★★★★✩
HIS THRILLING adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s YA novel was originally seen at the National Theatre in 2019 but was almost scuppered by the pandemic after plans were announced for a West End transfer.
Gaiman’s story, adapted by Joel Harwood, centres on a nameless 12-year-old boy’s friendship with farm-girl Lettie Hempstock (Nia Towle). He is the son of a single parent father who has struggled to pay the bills and raise his son and daughter ( a spiky Grace Hogg-Robinson) since their mother died.
Lettie is the youngest in an allfemale magical family of three, headed by her wise grandmother Old Mrs Hempstock (Penny Layden) and her more pragmatic mother (Siubhan Harrison). As well as milking cows, their jobs include preventing what Old Mrs Hempstock calls fleas from entering our dimension.
They are in fact much larger, shapeshifting monsters in fact who yearn to be let in to our world.
All this is discovered by the boy (played by James Bamford with an intense, socially awkward charm) when circumstances compel his father to leave him at the farm.
Gaiman’s imagination operates in that liminal place between past and present; the banal and magical, and also that place in which families live — between love and
The magic is terrifying and wonderful estrangement. If that sounds whimsical, this show is anything but. Katy Rudd’s superb production speeds along at the pace of a thriller and, with the help of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child illusionist Jamie Harrison, deploys stagecraft so skilfully that believing is no longer the inevitable result of seeing.
Nicolas Tennant is terrific as the boy’s world weary dad. Although narratively the focus is on the boy, it’s the relationship with the father that provides the show’s beating heart. Laura Rogers as Dad’s attractive new lodger Ursula is also worth a mention. Her rule in the household is heralded when she chillingly thanks the son for “letting her in”, a phrase the resonates with only him from the time he and Lettie encountered the monster attempting to enter our world.
The magic is terrifying and wonderful. The story is as warm as it is scary. For those whose relationship with their relatives are still frayed after the pressures of lockdown, the arrival of this uplifting and captivating production serves as a timely reminder of what family is all about.
This is the National Theatre at its most entertaining best.