Skip to main content

The Worst Witch review – crafty show brims with magic

Royal & Derngate, Northampton
Mildred Hubble’s misadventures are told with wit and ingenuity in a touring production based on Jill Murphy’s books

Jill Murphy was 15 when she invented Mildred Hubble, the clumsy girl who is deemed the “worst witch” after she arrives by accident at Miss Cackle’s Academy. Murphy’s books about Mildred have now sold more than 5m copies. One of the many joys about this new stage version for the over-sevens, created by Emma Reeves who also does the brilliant CBBC adaptation, is the way it empowers its young audience by sparking their imagination. You could do all this yourself, it seems to continually suggest. The spells, the slo-mo action sequences, the song-and-dance routines, even the handmade glove-puppet cats, beg to be recreated at home.

That’s partly because the show is framed as a school play written by Mildred and put on by the students and teachers at the academy (rated “fantastical” by Ofmag in such core subjects as charms and chanting, we’re told). It’s a clever concept because most of the audience will have firsthand experience of being involved in plays themselves, especially over the festive season.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2StjZax
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV
Post a Comment
Read more

When Brooklyn was queer: telling the story of the borough's LGBTQ past

In a new book, Hugh Ryan explores the untold history of queer life in Brooklyn from the 1850s forward, revealing some unlikely truths For five years Hugh Ryan has been hunting queer ghosts through the streets of Brooklyn, amid the racks of New York’s public libraries, among its court records and yellow newspaper clippings to build a picture of their lost world. The result is When Brooklyn Was Queer, a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBTQ life that starts in an era, the 1850s, when those letters meant nothing and ends before the Stonewall riots started the modern era of gay politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H9Zexs
Post a Comment
Read more