Review Roundup: The Critics Weigh in on the National Theatre's PINOCCHIO

Visit the alpine forest this winter as Pinocchio makes its world premiere at the National Theatre. On a quest to be truly alive, Pinocchio leaves Geppetto's workshop with Jiminy Cricket in tow. Their electrifying adventure takes them from alpine forests to Pleasure Island to the bottom of the ocean. Joe Idris-Roberts plays the title role, with Audrey Brisson as Jiminy Cricket and David Langham as the Fox.

This spectacular new production is brought to the stage by an extraordinary team including John Tiffany, the director of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Dennis Kelly, the writer of Matilda the Musical. Featuring unforgettable music and songs from the Walt Disney film including 'I've Got No Strings', 'Give a Little Whistle' and 'When You Wish upon a Star' in dazzling new arrangements, Pinocchio comes to life as never before. Pinocchio runs now until 10 April 2018.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

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Marianka Swain, BroadwayWorld: Martin Lowe's folk score is pleasant but unlikely to stick; the numbers you'll come out humming are the movie classics like "I've Got No Strings", "Give a Little Whistle" and "When You Wish Upon a Star" - the two former recurring excessively, the latter teased and then finally appearing in a subdued climatic rendition. The messaging is also a tad hazy - accepting different types of family, yet Pinocchio's reward is becoming less different; or the rather adult accepting pain as the human price of love. It may well elude littler ones, but conversely mature audiences will chafe at the hand-holding (Jiminy repeatedly explains her conscience role). Ultimately, it's more impressive as awe-inspiring - and somewhat disturbing - stage spectacle than as fully-fledged musical drama.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: You can almost feel Dennis Kelly, who had such success with Matilda, straining to make something of this much more intractable tale. His solution, which sends his hero on a parable of the modern afflictions of fame, pleasure and money and ends up with a very contemporary lesson about the value of pain, doesn't really come off. The dialogue all too often is flat and heavy-handed. He scores some successes though - and they are rewarded with beautiful performances. I was very fond of Audrey Brisson's OCD Jiminy Cricket, with her constant worries about bacteria and germs, and David Langham is excellently oily and terrifying as The Fox, catching a perfect tone of menace and madness. Hadfield anchors the whole thing with his warmth and his sense of loss. It is all so nearly wonderful. But rather like Pinocchio himself, it just stubbornly fails to come to full, breathing life.

Natasha Tripney, The Stage: There's magic here. The score by Martin Lowe, which takes the original Disney songs - When You Wish upon a Star, Give a Little Whistle - and expands them, fusing them with folk songs, successfully stirs the emotions.. Jamie Harrison, who worked with Tiffany on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, creates illusions that are effective and plentiful. Donkey ears sprout from heads. Noses grow. The increasingly frantic I've Got No Strings dance sequence at Stromboli's marionette theatre is a real highlight, slickly choreographed with an edge of menace by another Cursed Child cohort, Steven Hoggett ... But the production as a whole suffers from a lack of momentum. The first half in particular lacks a sense of urgency and the blend of the creepy and the sweet never quite resolves itself.

Michael Billington, The Guardian: It all makes for a rich evening that, as my 12-year-old grandson pointed out, is scary as well as funny. Tiffany as director and Bob Crowley as designer also know how to combine simplicity and spectacle. Stepladders evoke the scholarly world Pinocchio escapes. Pleasure Island, however, looks like a riotous Blackpool funfair reimagined by Piranesi, and the famous whale that devours the central characters is suggested through headlamps and a ribcage in which the bones curve like the arches in a Romanesque cathedral. This may not be as terrifying as the massive Moby Dick-like mammal in the movie but, like everything else in this production, it shows how the fable of the puppet who wants to be human has been delightfully reanimated.

Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard: When Pinocchio's nose extends to the length of a broomstick or a troupe of marionettes suspended by ribbons accompanies him as he dances, it's impossible not to be impressed by the ingenious effects. Yet spectacle prevails over heart and soul. It's as if the show's formidable technical demands have compromised everything else. The second half is more dramatic, but the tone remains uncertain, and for a piece ostensibly aimed at children it's oddly cold, remote and joyless.

Paul Taylor, The Independent: If I was not fighting sobs by the end, this was no fault of Annette McLaughlin who is deeply affecting in her climactic rendition (with choir) of "When You Wish Upon A Star" nor of Mark Hadfield who achingly captures the puppet-maker's lonely selfless devotion to his substitute son. The ingredients are all there. I expect that the breakthrough into truly racking sentiment will come during the run. Meanwhile, down at the bottom of the ocean, there's a knockout whale...

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: Things pick up when Pinocchio and his conscience-guiding cricket companion Jiminy (here a little green puppet-critter, female and hypochondriacal) get thrown inside the belly of a whale - lots of swimming about on flying-harnesses achieves a real sense of lift-off. But often Kelly's script, focused on unpacking its father-son issues, ambles (even when assisted by an enjoyably arch turn from David Langham as the predatory Fox) when it should boyishly skip and leap. Truth to tell, while a couple of uses of Pinocchio's elongating wooden nose raise a laugh, I'd be lying if I said this was a must for more than the very young (around 8-10) and parents in search of something, anything, to get the nippers out of the house. Maybe what the show needs to do is grow up and become a real musical.

Ann Treneman, The Times: Be warned that this Pinocchio will not be what you expect. The only thing Disney here is the (fabulous) songs. This is a story - script by Dennis Kelly - with more dark corners than an old wardrobe in a cobwebby attic. Pinocchio's quest to become "real" is marked by encounters with the evil Fox, the power-mad Stromboli and a creep named the Coachman who rules the misnamed Pleasure Island. It is suggested that this show is for "brave eight-year-olds" and that seems about right. I sat next to some younger ones and they were baffled. I loved the way that Tiffany has played with scale: the workshop of Pinocchio's father, Geppetto, is larger than life, fitting the puppets' size but not the humans. But it takes time to take all this in and the first half feels uneven though it ends with a stonkingly good version of I've Got No Strings.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: So a great evening out for the whole family, right? I dunno. I liked it, but for its gothic strangeness, its exotic flights of fancy, its lavish visuals. It did seem like it might be soul-shatteringly terrifying for younger children (the age advice is 'for brave eight-year-olds and above'). But I guess it's not for me to say what kids find scary these days, and the ones in attendance on press night didn't seem too emotionally scarred. It is a fantastically strange night, and if they were hoping for a new 'Lion King', it's difficult to imagine bigwigs at Disney being thrilled. Which is possibly the highest recommendation I can give it. Brace yourself, and gawp in faintly terrified wonder for two-and-a-half hours.

Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter: Fans of the National's original production of War Horse will thrill to see similar virtuoso displays of puppeteering skill here again. Inverting expectations, Idris-Roberts' Pinocchio has the dimensions of a regular person, while the adults around him are played by teams operating the double-sized papier-mache characters. Those include Geppetto (voiced by Mark Hadfield, who also operates the head while three others operate the body and arms), the Blue Fairy, Stromboli (voice and head by Gershwyn Eustache Jr.) and the Coachman (David Kirkbride). The way the actors speaking the lines are dressed as mini-me versions of the puppets is peculiarly disturbing and distracting to the eye, but ultimately, like so many odd choices here, it works.

Nico Hines, The Daily Beast: The sets, the props and the puppets are magnificent from the outset but the human drama and the humor only really hit their stride in the second half. When Pinocchio is transported to the dystopian Pleasure Island, the excellent chorus comes to the fore injecting more energy into the show-as well as plenty of fart jokes and slapstick that went down well with the members of the audience who were out past their bedtimes. Ironically for a show about a puppet with no strings, some of the most glorious stagecraft was the wire-work which was reminiscent of the stunning underwater scenes from The Cursed Child. Despite the flawless production, this classic story can't help feeling a little dated, straight and sincere compared to its more irreverent, raucous modern competitors. It's a tale about a liar that's a bit too honest.

Matt Trueman, Variety: How ironic that "Pinocchio" should be a bit lifeless. With Disney handing over the keys to a cherished classic for the first time, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" director John Tiffany has served up an eye-popping production that is as stiff as a board. For all its staggering stagecraft, this "Pinocchio" is, for the moment, missing real soul. With a little whittle, however, it could still come good.

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