Hetty Feather

King’s, Edinburgh

MARY BRENNAN

★★★

WHEN Phoebe Thomas hoves into sight on a trapeze, devotees of Hetty Feather must feel as if Jacqueline Wilson’s fiction has been made fact. Thomas actually has Hetty’s distinctive, springy mane of red hair. She also has the measure of the little girl’s defiance and grit. Hetty’s tale is one of woe and worse: her days in the Victorian-era Foundling Hospital are badged with all kinds of petty indignities and actual cruelty, but her abil- ity to survive – and especially her unyielding yen for the mother she barely remembers – makes for the kind of rollercoaster narrative that keeps young readers glued to every tear-stained page.

On-stage, however, it’s a different matter. Director Sally Cookson, and adaptor Emma Reeves, have gone the extra mile in trying to keep faith with the book. A freer hand that ignored the exact letter might have caught the spirit with less hyperactive fuss. Anyone who doesn’t know (and love) every detail in Wilson’s writing will puzzle over the time – some two-anda-half hours – it takes for Hetty to find a happy ending. You can register the thought and effort in the “big top” setting that translates Hetty’s circus dreams into a piece of aerial-infused music theatre, and applaud the slick finesse and energy of a multi-tasking cast, who scale ladders, swing on ropes, and perform on silks and trapeze, while assuming various characters. Live music, minimal props – costumes are popped on over Victorian-esque stripey long johns, planks become all-purpose scenery – mean it all looks full of dash and swagger. But it feels artificial in a way that Hetty’s plight doesn’t and shouldn’t, so luckily Thomas herself draws us to the heart of the action.