The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe - The Haymarket, Basingstoke (From Daily Echo)

The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe - The Haymarket, Basingstoke

12:03pm Thursday 17th December 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

ARMED with their imaginations, children will gasp, giggle and cheer at the Anvil Arts production of this classic tale.

Very much directed at young families and schoolchildren, The Haymarket’s Christmas show, adapted by Glyn Robbins, stays faithful to C S Lewis’s plot.

For those uninitiated few, the plot follows siblings Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter Pevensie who have been evacuated to a country house during the Second World War. There they find a large, wooden wardrobe and the magical world of Narnia on the other side, where it is forever winter but never Christmas.

There is a lot of action to pack into about 90 minutes so the story moves at a pace, but for younger audiences this is perhaps no bad thing.

The standard of acting is good, with Michael Bryher adding a comic touch as Edmund and is particularly convincing as a cheeky “little horror”, talking back, playing tricks and telling lies.

Thomas Wilton is memorable as Mr Tumnus, despite his relatively small role, and Caroline Corrie, as the White Witch, is suitably mean and regal.

Aslan’s costume is not as lion-like as it could be, but the actor Howard Saddler makes up for this with his poised performance, but it is Doron Davidson, as Maugrim the Wolf, who will make a lasting impression.Tall with a white face, black lips and ferocious growl, I noticed a few flinches in the auditorium whenever the witch’s henchman entered.

Hopefully recent big-screen treatments of Narnia have not raised children’s expectations above what is possible in a theatre, but the children with whom I shared the auditorium seemed to have no problems suspending their disbelief. Until January 2.

Lucie Richards