Sweet smell of success for Mr Stink
Mr Stink (Chickenshed Theatre, London) Verdict: Well worth sniffing out
WHAT a coup they’ve pulled off at the Chickenshed community theatre at the end of the Piccadilly Line in North London. They’ve come up with a delightful musical adaptation of David Walliams’s children’s novel about the quietly charismatic but decidedly pongy vagrant with a sad secret.
So pleased was Mr Walliams with their show, which uses professional, amateur and local thespians from their youth group, that the Britain’s Got Talent judge has promised future collaborations.
Mr Stink is a genuinely charming production that marries high production standards with inclusive casting that feels joyful rather than worthy.
At the matinee I saw, LucyMae Beacock played bashful teenage writer Chloe, who befriends a smelly but sweet local tramp. Beacock makes a terrifically feisty girl next door, pluckily opposing the tide as she stands by her smelly friend (played by Bradley Davis).
Davis is perfectly cast, too, as the raggedy man with bow tie and professorial voice a la Stephen Fry. Lightly garnishing his turn with toilet humour and philosophical bon mots, he is easy to love. He puts Chloe’s politically aspirational mother (Belinda McGuirk) — she of the suburban megalomania and Thatcherite Mr Whippy perm — in her place.
Lou Stein’s production is tremendously engaging and assured on a cartoon set planted with lollipop trees.
Goutham Rohan delights as Raj, a hearing-impaired Indian running the corner shop, and for ever trying to flog Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtle stationery sets. There’s also a chorus in Christmas jumpers, singing an ode to sausages and a showstopping We Want Stink.
They are all a huge credit to the youth and amateur theatre movement that is the bedrock of this country’s world-beating theatre culture.