These Theatre Thoughts

I knew I was going to love this show from the very start. A big screen filled with the clock from the Delorean in Back To The Future, and the top line proclaimed the exact date and time that I was sitting in the theatre, waiting for the day to start. The bottom line? Well, that was our time travelling destination of course: July 06, 1985. credit: Darren Bell It was a fun, quirky way to start a fun, quirky show packed with so much nostalgia my heart fairly ached by the end of it for days past. You may have guessed, I love the 80s. There is something so magical about the clothes, the music, the movies, that I can’t help but look back on that decade with a huge and warming fondness. So for me, The Wedding Singer was already hitting all the right notes. And then the action began, and I was blown away. This is a high energy show from the start, full of songs that will have you tapping your feet to the rhythm and humming them long after the final curtain. They are familiar because we know wh

Roald Dahl is perhaps one of the best loved children’s writers in the world. Ever. So coming up with a musical version of one of his wonderful stories must be a bit of a daunting task. How to make it silly enough? How to make it revolting enough? How to make it moral enough to satisfy parents and children alike? It’s not a job I would relish. Getting it wrong would be a disaster, a disappointment to fans across the generations. Thankfully, in Fantastic Mr Fox the musical currently playing at The Orchard Theatre, Dartford until 5 th  March, the writers have got it spot on. It’s a wild and wacky, sometimes scary, always silly telling of Dahl’s story, which stays true to the original whilst adding its own oompf and bite to proceedings. In fact, if anything, this version of Fantastic Mr Fox gives some of the more two dimensional characters from the book (Rabbit, Mole, and perhaps particularly Farmer Bean) a bit more substance. A backstory. It pushes everything along at a thrilling and jaun