APOLOGIES for taking so long to be off to see the Wizard – Prague holiday prevailed – but there is still time to follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Grand Opera House.
That road starts outside the auditorium, a lovely welcoming touch by York Stage, whose abundantly colourful production is directed and produced by Nik Briggs, with fabulous ensemble choreography by Damien Poole and thrilling, resourceful musical direction by Jessica Viner, whose birthday happened to fall on the performance attended by your reviewer.
Such is the attention to detail that the Tannoy interval music includes Carry On Wayward Son by…Kansas, and it is to Kansas that we must head for L Frank Baum’s one heck of a weird story, so memorably converted from his 1900 novel to a film wonderland for Judy Garland as over-the-rainbow farm girl Dorothy Gale in 1939.
A-level student Erin Childs takes that iconic ruby slipper-clicking role in York Stage’s show, in tow with Toto, played by Briggs’s dog Freddie, leaving his mark on the production in more way than one with an urgent deposit, and, once on that yellow brick road by Elanor Kitchen’s puppet, handled so dextrously by puppeteer Sarah Jackson. No such mishap for the puppet.
Childs’s Dorothy hits the heights from the off with her rendition of Over The Rainbow, familiar yet with a finale that brings more resonance to the words. Kansas accent spot on, fringe flopping over her eyes, she leads Briggs’s high-spectacle staging of John Kane’s Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation with appropriate pluck and persistence, although her speaking voice tends towards being high pitched at times.
After the spectacular tornado de force of the storm scene, propelled by Adam Moore’s magical invocation of a twister that tosses Dorothy’s bed hither and thither, she is joined on the journey to Emerald City by Florence Poskitt’s Scarecrow, Stu Hutchinson’s Tin Man and Finn East’s Lion (having played the Guard in Pick Me Up Theatre’s 2018 production).
Poskitt, one half of musical duo Fladam, is a supremely expressive physical comedic talent, perfectly suited to the wobbly legged, woolly thinking Scarecrow, but every so often her lines were wont to lose clarity as sentences lengthened. Nevertheless, her performance is a work of clowning joy.
Hutchinson’s Tin Man conducts himself like a matinee idol from a Hollywood cigarette card series with just the right air of camp. Even better is Finn East’s Lion, his natural stage warmth, playfulness and show-stealing presence on full throttle. If I Were King Of The Forest had always been one of the lesser tunes in Harold Arlen and EY Harburg’s score…until now, when East parades his full vocal range like a latterday Meat Loaf.
Carly Morton’s Aunt Em/Glinda spars splendidly with Emily Alderson’s curmudgeonly Miss Glutch and green-with-envy Wicked Witch of the West, while Ian Giles picks up where he left off in reprising his Pick Me Up dual roles as Professor Marvel and the Wizard Of Oz with avuncular aplomb, aided by a giant screen representation of the Wizard’s face with Giles’s distinctively thick head of hair.
Ensemble supporting roles for Munchkins, Winkies and more besides are played with abundant energy by adults and juniors alike, at their best in Munchkinland and especially The Jitterbug.
Briggs calls on the costume wizardry of Charades and Sheffield Theatres, as well as York Stage resources, while Shone Productions’ set is top notch too. The poppy field dance is a particular delight.
Viner works her musicians to full capacity, taking on such familiar songs with relish as York Stage’s The Wizard Of Oz feels very much at home at the Grand Opera House.
York Stage in The Wizard Of Oz, Grand Opera House, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.