Dominic Cavendish — Theater Critic

With set designs that exude tongue-in-cheek period fidelity, and thundering piano-music interludes that form a running joke about 19th-century theatricals, this is more snappy lark than history lesson. Its mischievous streak is fully announced the moment Park’s pale-faced, rouge-cheeked heroine flounces on to the stage, hoop-dress and ringlets a-bobbing, in raging search of the liquor her husband (played by Giles Terera as a wonderfully furtive statesman) has just tried to hide. “Oh mother, why did I marry him?” she madly rails at a sober portrait of George Washington.

A plot that could easily become convoluted is instead brisk and hypnotic, Sondheim’s jaunty music keeping step with lyrics that have their own springy levity. Fein initially positions his lead cast around a work-table, with Michael Gould markedly understated as the show’s Narrator. Then designer Tom Scutt reveals a woodland scene with tree-trunks so tangible and foliage so lush, you want in on the adventure, too. The moral of the tale, of course, is to be careful what you wish for: the second half, in which discord, death and disaster stalk a ravaged landscape, dismantles “happy ever afters”.

Wonderful, but at other points, it feels like the focus gets lost; as when we’re required to watch both the human and puppet versions of the other bruising giants slug it out, diminishing the menace of the vicious “Bloodbottler” in particular. Likewise, although there’s a beautiful sequence in which a feather-like luminous “dream” magically darts about the auditorium, only to be caught in BFG’s net, the preoccupation in the story, about how our dreams relate to our subconscious fears, feels under explored. Sophie, BFG and the Queen too (a redoubtable Helena Lymbery) are all struggling with loneliness, but a deep sense of inner-life is lacking.

London has a new tourist attraction: at the Savoy, Paddington Bear has been brought to life in a funny, feel-good, family-friendly musical that looks set to run and run.

Caitlin Fitzgerald’s terrific, finally terrified Desdemona, combining innocence with independent-mindedness, stands her ground too. Thus the production, which ably registers the play’s disconcerting notes of comedy, and throughline of avoidable tragedy, is anchored to psychological plausibility: how swiftly reason can unravel, and a happy couple spiral towards calamity. Vinette Robinson as Iago’s wife, Emilia, also taps due depth in the outraged dismay of a woman co-opted into the nightmare.

The verbal wit is matched with visual élan. Choreographer Lorin Latarro honours the Fiddler-ish pastiche of Bialystock’s opening number with preposterously prancing shtetl figures while Liebkind’s swastika-daubed, puppeteered pigeons bob hilariously in sync. A surreal highlight is the mock tap-routine by rows of Zimmer-clacking old lady-investors.

Whether you’re resistant or receptive to the main premise, there’s delight to be had in seeing a friskily rivalrous rapport form between the famous duo, even if we’re given little tangible sense of the wider Elizabethan world. Bolstered by a monumental lighting design that seems determined to dazzle the stalls, Gatwa has the preening swagger of a rock star, restless and agile. We’re not in the same territory of art-meets-life drollery as Shakespeare in Love, and compared to the sitcom Upstart Crow, there’s more artful wittering here than actual wit. But we’re intrigued nonetheless as “Kit” moves from condescension to quill-stroking fascination with Bluemel’s diligent, sensible genius from the sticks.

In its huge favour: after three hours of eavesdropping on a lovingly recreated retro recording studio (anachronistic Yamaha monitors aside), you’ll likely emerge from the theatre feeling elated and attached to the unnamed band – two fractious couples and a drummer with a fraying marriage back home. They slog through sessions, and verbally slug it out, tended by a pair of geeky but laid-back sound engineers. There’s idle chat and cocaine, spliffs and tiffs, and gilded moments when the music (impressively performed live by the cast) goes from side-show to main event.

The space works like some hallucinogenic kaleidoscope; locations emerge through the floor and then, in the twinkling of an eye, submerge. Some of the actors are more like stunt-artists than others – Moorst bursting up through, and down into, a mattress, say, or sardonically delivering his lines upside down; the fairies flying and tumbling overhead on sheet ropes. But all must rise to the occasion of split-second timing. Wit and lyricism run in tandem with physical prowess. Whether it be an insightful emphasis or a giggle-making ad-lib – not a moment of the evening is slack.

Well, at the risk of sounding like an ingrate, I’d say Dominic Cooke’s briskly efficient, interval-free revival courts seeming a bit anodyne, especially given the PR promise that Cooke and co are bringing this once contentious, long-banned 1894 work “crashing into the 21st century” (they don’t). That said, few should pass up the opportunity to see Staunton on stage. Even laying aside the fact that she has been the Queen in The Crown, she qualifies as revered acting royalty.

I’d love to salute this as the writer’s deserved hour of triumph, not least because this piece transmutes his painful experience into the stuff of accessible entertainment. The author attended AA when he was in his twenties and like Lowden’s lost soul, who grabs our attention at the start by opening up to Freeman’s James about his lack of luck with women, and addiction to porn, he has said he struggled with dating then. Like Luka, too, who surreally claims to have encountered Jesus in the guise of Willem Dafoe on a gym treadmill, he had a religious epiphany that saved him.

In the midst of this invitation to bungle – involving covert bugged radios, overt communication failures and frantic excuses – stand the sweetly hapless figure of Shields’s Bernard Wright, a baker, vainly trying to propose to his girlfriend (Adele James’s Rosemary) and Lewis’s Douglas Woodbead, a loudly roaring failed actor, preparing to audition for James Bond. No less cherishable are Charlie Russell and Chris Leask as the only too conspicuous Russkies, while Dave Hearn and Nancy Zamit impress as the clueless (and, ludicrously, related) Yanks. In a knowingly wearying second half, the plot thickens with spiralling double-crossing guaranteed to have everyone, not just the tourists, struggling to keep up. I’d say it takes near genius to fashion something this incorrigibly goofy.

We may admire Stone’s flinty resolve (American actress Aya Cash taking over, capably, from Romola Garai), but she’s still inclined to separate the artist from his art in deference to her learning disabled son’s reading needs, her stance complicated further by Dahl’s compassion for the boy, and for her. And Lithgow’s multi-faceted portrait keeps our sympathies shifting to the unpalatable end: his insouciance and incorrigible wit beguiling, his humanitarian concern persuasive, his prejudice bound up with his self-sabotaging personality type. Rachael Stirling remains pitch-perfect as his warily, almost wearily supportive partner Felicity, with Tessa Bonham Jones and Richard Hope completing the cast as the astute house-help and bluntly sage handyman.

What should deepen and tauten the drama alas throws up inconclusive thoughts on empowerment and a ton of emotional overstatement. It’s hard to care about this lot, including David Ajala’s Ragnar, a pretentious and rather pre-fab flamboyant star in the field, and Elena’s nondescript assistant (Mirren Mack’s Kaia). Perky allusions to David Bowie aside, the writing clunks, and the strain on the cast shows.

The script doesn’t dig deep, but still cuts below the surface, broaching what lasts, and what doesn’t, and the way we must all take our final bow. Golding’s contribution perhaps risks the greatest disappointment, given how adored Morecambe was, but even if he trades on a roster of familiar mannerisms – the raised eyebrows and forced chuckles, that pipe-puffing insouciance – he beautifully catches the essence of the star. And when he takes to a chair to strum and sing With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock, we ascend to a cloud nine where being innocuously daft is all. If we’re left wanting more, maybe that’s the point.

But far from seeming cheerless, and déjà vu, the approach proves a fresh, unbounded joy. Freeing the action from studious naturalism, and social context, it’s a teasing provocation, with loud klaxon honks jolting us too. The boldest stroke (design: Soutra Gilmour) is a sustained shower of pink confetti. It’s faintly magical to behold; on another level, it chimes with the play’s tragicomic mix of autumnal wistfulness and amorous adventure.

Grant Olding’s (sometimes intrusive) music blends a Crown-like solemnity with Succession’s tinkling intrigue. Textual tweaking assists clarity (though forfeiting Act III’s garden scene, sidelining the Queen): it’s openly averred to his face that Richard was behind Gloucester’s death at Mowbray’s hands. And Bailey gives us some notable tics: an insecure digging into his pockets, a need to dart about, lots of stiff, tilting head-movements, denoting a tenuous authority. Still, initially, he’s businesslike, faceless, even rather flat; his reckless resorting to coke-snorting looks de trop.

What hasn’t arguably been seen on stage to such effect before (and it’s had audience-members fainting) is the re-enacting, by Romola Garai’s version of Annie, of an unwanted pregnancy and back-street abortion. It relays harrowing distress and starkly emblemises the plight of generations of women – an indictment of the burden that fell on them before the supposed liberation of the contraceptive pill and rise of feminism.

Much of the show’s capacity to hold an audience enraptured rests on the tender shoulders of the juvenile lead. It’s hats off once again (and thrown to the rafters) to Cian Eagle-Service, affecting in Chichester and no less so here. Doubtless the three other lads sharing the role are top-notch too, but this 12-year-old’s expressive face, delicate frame and searing solos mean you couldn’t ask for more, sir. When he finally beams on being taken under the wing of Billy Jenkins’s swaggering Dodger, it’s like winter vanishing.

Archness is the order of the day, the brisk, interval-free affair (with book by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue, the latter directing) trading on the best-known tropes and scenes, avid for cheap, camp shots. If you have genuine tears to shed for the victims of the disaster, it’s best to leave them at the door. That said, although it’s a case of anachronisms-a-go-go (in this irony-laden 1912, there are gags about texting, aubergine emojis, Grindr and the like), there’s a surprisingly decent fit between the storyline and Dion’s ballads.

The stark, sad fact, however, is that Weaver fails to weave the requisite magic. In terms of both her visual and auditory contribution, there’s something missing. She hasn’t done Shakespeare on stage since the mid-80s and has perhaps since become too wedded to the screen’s demands for minimalism, though Lloyd has plainly constructed the interpretation round maximal physical restraint. Her performance could possibly achieve some close-up marvels on camera but here, in contrast to his recent offerings (Tom Holland’s Romeo included), he forgoes that option.

Patrick Marber’s fun, slick-ish production pulls out all the stops for that still jaw-dropping scene, albeit on a fringier budget. Plump and purringly feline, Trevor Ashley’s Roger De Bris, Springtime’s director-turned-Hitler-stand-in, arrives in a gilded chariot – the kitsch pièce de résistance of a sequence that boasts a chorus-line of silver-clad stormtroopers goose-stepping, tap-dancing and Sieg Heil-ing with limp-wristed abandon. It’s a consummate guilty pleasure: we’re laughing at the Nazis at the risk of traducing the darkest chapter of 20th century history.

Style as well as (some) substance is required here, and you’d think that’d be here in abundance given that Elton John has written the music. But it’s as if the trendsetter who gave us Billy Elliot and The Lion King – not to mention some of the finest pop songs of our era – has couriered over some generic material and everyone has followed suit (the bland lyrics are by Shaina Taub and Mark Sonnenblick).

Even as she’s singing “wow wow wow fellas”, you half-register that, actually, for all its irresistible charm, “Hello, Dolly!” offers only an intermittent wow-factor, and nothing quite as career-defining for the star as her tour de force a decade or so ago in Sweeney Todd. Cooke taps the pathos of the character’s situation – presenting her initially alone, tidying clothes into a wardrobe – before hurtling her into a moving bustle of citizenry, as she gaily doles out calling-cards; later, she sings Look, Love in My Window.

While you might be able to affect a Gallic shrug at the show’s unproblematised attitude to its central age gap (endorsed at the sentimental close), it’s harder to dispel the impression that the musical augmentation drains the tale of rustic authenticity. For all the strenuous accordion-playing and warm orchestrations, instead of becoming more atmospherically specific it all starts to sound touristically generic. And we’re not miles from ‘Allo ‘Allo!, with a community of types: the local drunk, the moralising priest, the sage teacher, the lecherous Mayor. They bicker a fair bit but don’t flicker into memorable life.