Rough Magic West End Reviews

Rough Magic is an absolute treat of a show, amusing adults alongside the enchanted children. The play has true heart, as we warm to Nona’s plight, working through the key message that mistakes are inevitable, but having integrity and working to res...

Rough Magic is an absolute treat of a show, amusing adults alongside the enchanted children. The play has true heart, as we warm to Nona’s plight, working through the key message that mistakes are inevitable, but having integrity and working to resolve misdemeanours are key. Rough Magic is clever and bold, with brilliant performances by an infectiously charismatic and playful cast.

Lucy Cuthbertson’s production, with additional direction by Frampton, is warm-spirited and well-paced. The young audience particularly enjoy when any potentially boring bits are fast-fowarded by the actors. Plays that close by extolling the wond...

Lucy Cuthbertson’s production, with additional direction by Frampton, is warm-spirited and well-paced. The young audience particularly enjoy when any potentially boring bits are fast-fowarded by the actors. Plays that close by extolling the wonders of drama can end up irritating instead. But Rough Magic concludes with a moving reflection on the spirit in which we make our entrances and exits at the theatre, and the wizardry that binds us in between.

If thorny issues of free will versus devilish equivocation or the convolutions of the multiple Shakespearean narratives begin to bamboozle the kids, Cuthbertson and Frampton can be relied upon to supply some supremely silly stage business to quell th...

If thorny issues of free will versus devilish equivocation or the convolutions of the multiple Shakespearean narratives begin to bamboozle the kids, Cuthbertson and Frampton can be relied upon to supply some supremely silly stage business to quell the fidgets. We help the witches to conjure their sleep and laughter charms; two self-regarding actors from the ghost department, dressed in fright wigs and all-white doublet-and-hose, flamboyantly teach us their scare tactics. Illusion designer John Bulleid ensures that candles mysteriously extinguish and players vanish into thin air, and a Shadow (Frampton again, this time a Scarlet Pimpernel figure with an outrageous French accent) demonstrates how to suspend a dagger in mid-air. Descriptions of the murders of Banquo and, in particular, of Macduff’s family, sit uneasily within the tomfoolery. Otherwise, this show holds its young sorcerers’ apprentices spellbound.