Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
It is spirited and witty, with superb puppetry and comedic performances, but this new musical’s songs don’t stay with you and the messages are overdone
The tusked star of Kate DiCamillo’s novel The Magician’s Elephant arrives, like Dumbo, from the skies. This elephant falls not into a travelling circus, but an opera house in the city of Baltese and her arrival lifts the spirits of its war-weary inhabitants. Now this musical adaptation, directed by Sarah Tipple, lands at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to welcome back audiences for the first time since it closed last March.
The musical was programmed before the pandemic but its storyline of collective grief, recovery and reconnection chimes with our current moment. And who doesn’t love an elephant? Puppetry director Mervyn Millar and fellow designer Tracy Waller have created a beauty who, controlled by three puppeteers inside, tickles bottoms with her trunk, flaps her ears and instantly delights the half-term audience at this matinee.
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