Here be dragons... and spiders, pigs and a witch with a perm
Spirited Away
London Coliseum
Until August 24, 3hrs
★★★★★
Party Games!
Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford
Touring until June 29, 2hrs
★★★★★
In Spirited Away, you can expect dragons, a six-armed man, a giant baby, three bobbing green heads, a no-face ghost, a Kermit-like frog and puppet pigs. Then there is a massive, plump radish and a flock of tiny hairy spiders.
All of this is presided over by a beaky witch with a massive perm.
The play tells the story of a little girl, Chihiro, who accidentally enters a spirit world when she is separated from her parents in an abandoned theme park. Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 animated film (which is famous for its sublime artwork) is here staged in the vastness of the London Coliseum with a budget and ticket prices to match. It’s from the same stable – Studio Ghibli – as last year’s award-scooping theatre smash My Neighbour Totoro and has been adapted for the stage by John Caird, with amazing puppetry by Toby Olie, while an orchestra plays Joe Hisaishi’s fine film score.
But while it looks stunning, it’s not as moving or as downright unmissable as Totoro.
The stage is dominated by a giant revolving bath house, where the girl has to slave to try to win her freedom.
The relationship between her and the resident boy-dragon, Haku, is all very sweet.
But the parade of exotic costumes and ensemble dancing often makes the evening feel like a Japanese variety night.
It is also an hour longer than the movie, and comes with neckcricking surtitles.
The star of this, the no-face creature (Hikaru Yamano), is a shimmering presence of utter loneliness that gives the show its eerie poetic undertow.
For Studio Ghibli fans, this is a lavish addition to its theatre franchise, but it could do with a good trim.
Party Games! arrives as a new touring comedy.
It’s set in the near future, in No10, where the One Nation party’s newly elected prime minister prepares to govern.
Played with rogue-ish bluster by Matthew Cottle, this PM sounds like Boris, spouts Latin and breaks wind (a lot).
The plot features his bossy wife, an obnoxious adviser (clearly meant to be Dominic Cummings), aloof civil servants and a chief whip who keeps a pet tarantula.
But as satire it’s all water under the bridge, without reference to anything going on now or even in the past.
It’s written by former political adviser Michael McManus, who worked for John Major, Margaret Thatcher and also Ted Heath.
I’d hoped for more actual insight from it – and certainly for more laughs.