All aboard for a bewitching return to Narnia
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
(Gillian Lynne Theatre, London) Verdict: The original Lion King ★★★★☆
THERE is a distinct echo of Harry Potter at the start of this imaginative, occasionally spectacular adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s classic when the four Pevensie children — Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy — evacuees from a blitzed World War II London, gather on a station platform. The fantastical world of Narnia clearly inspired J. K. Rowling.
Then it’s all change, as the passengers raise their suitcases aloft and, lit up like windows, the cases become the carriages of a train shooting through the darkness to the wilds of Aberdeenshire. Thrilling.
This reworking of Sally Cookson’s smallerscale 2017 adaptation is a play with enjoyably folksy songs (no take-home melodies) rather than a full-on musical.
Director Michael Fentiman’s unseasonably snowy ensemble production incorporates actor-musicians, puppet-master Toby Olié’s unmistakable creations, vibrantly dancing reindeer and old-fashioned theatrical magic to conjure the mystical, mythical world of Narnia. The solid old wardrobe opens into a kingdom of billowing white parachute silk, a place forever winter, where goodness battles against evil — and wins. But at a price: bloodshed and death.
Still, spring returns, flowers bloom magically and broken relationships are mended. With war raging in Ukraine, it’s a reassuring message.
Not that the show shrinks from the brutal reality of war and cruelty. Samantha Womack’s chilling, icicle-crowned, knifewielding White Witch is vile and violent.
Her army of skull-headed wraiths are even more alarming than the helmeted, stamping wolfish crew pulling her chariot. Richard III meets Hannibal Lecter in Emmanuel Ogunjinmi’s truly terrifying murderous Maugrim, snorting behind his gas-mask.
The sadness and nobility of the awesome Aslan is brought to remarkable parthuman, part-animal, part-spiritual life by both an actor, Chris Jared, draped in acres of rippling fur, and a huge leonine puppet, enlivened by three near- invisible puppeteers, one controlling a particularly expressive tail.
By contrast, the excellent actors playing mere humans are somewhat ordinary and earthbound. Which is all for the best. An audience of spellbound children appeared to recognise themselves.