‘Lords and Ladies’
Collingwood RSC
IT’S abundantly clear how much this company loves Terry Pratchett (it’s Director Chris Blatch-Gainey’s fourteenth TP play !), the 35-strong cast revelling in the storytelling of this multi-layered play/fairytale with its nods to Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (Rustics performing a play for the King’s wedding), ‘Macbeth’ (three witches) and Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ (Elvish Archers).
Set in Pratchett’s Discworld, with plots too diverse to explain, we were transported to a world of evil elves, old-fashioned witches, paralytically shy royalty, academia, and bees ! Narrated by Abi Philo as Footnote, we saw King Verance (sheepish David Powell) finally arrange to marry his love, apprentice witch Magrat (versatile Laura Woodward) while the villainous Elf Queen (Ashleigh Motley) was finally brought to heel by Emma Hughes’s tenacious Granny Weatherwax and Jane Blatch-Gainey’s deliciously coarse Nanny Ogg.
Lovely cameos, too, from Bob Bell as the foghorn-voiced Archchancellor and Joe Allan’s Harry Potter-esque Stibbons”.
Ed Howson
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