Chichester Festival Theatre are currently streaming their Youth Theatre production from 2017, 'Beauty And The Beast'. With new book by Anna Ladwich and music / lyrics by Richard Taylor, this is a traditional and familiar story given a fresh twist.
This particular story starts with three children, Rosie, Dennis and James (Evie Carter, Noah Peirson, Albie Stisted), who have been sent to live live at a large and rambling old manor house in the Sussex countryside with lots of other children, also from London. They are being evacuated from London for the time being, it's the Second World War, and like many others they find themselves in strange and unfamiliar surroundings. The other children who are already living there do nothing to quell their anxieties either, and they talk of a beast and they hear strange noises. Moreover a very strict and stern landlady tells them never to go near the East Wing.
The young residents decide to tell the three newcomers the story / legend of how this house became 'haunted' by a beast, and we then travel back in time, and the stage is cleverly used as both the story being brought to life and the present. The story being brought to life starts in London with a very rich tea merchant, Mr Villeneuve (George Bailey) and his 5 children. Two not-so-intelligent and very vein sons, and three daughters. The three daughters can be thought of as 'Cinderella and the Ugly Sisters' for in fact that is exactly how they act. Adeline (Emily McAlpine) and Caroline (Freya Collins) want only wealth and possessions - oh and chocolate; whist his youngest daughter, Beauty (Mia Cunningham-Stockdale), is quite at home wearing dungarees and working in the garden growing both vegetables and flowers. Villeneuve's fortune crashes overnight and they are forced to leave London and take up residence in a cottage in the country. Villeneuve loses his way and ends up at a huge, ornate and spelndid mansion where he is given hospitality by an unseen host. In his desire to get back home and give his children presents he sees the exact rose that his daughter Beauty would love, and as he picks the rose he seals his and Beauty's fate and the story, the familiar one that we know, continues, more or less unchanged, from there.
The set (Simon Higlett) was a single composite one on a revolve... that of a large rather delapidated country mansion house. This, with a bare stage in front of it (and the odd trap door) work surprisingly well for all locations. The costuming (Ryan Dawson Laight) was very good (especially the hair styles) and the movement and direction (Dale Rooks) was tight and extremely well thought through. Both Beauty's and The Beast's character-arcs were especially well judged. The most outstanding thing about this production was the puppetry (Nick Barnes). Both Winston, a horse (Jennifer Goodier), and The Beast (Hal Darling) wore a kind of body skeleton with protruding head affair. Cleverly designed and they worked excellently.
This was a youth theatre production and as such, all the performers on stage were, I would imagine no older than 20, majority being considerably younger. The show was a difficult one for such a large cast, but, as is my usual experience, youngsters have an energy, vitality and freshness which is rarely present in adult performers, and they brought this story to stunning life with love and skill. My personal favourites were the Beast's servants. The idea of having anthropomorphic human-sized animals to serve the Beast in his 'lair' was a brilliant one, and all of them did a marvellous job, but I especially enjoyed the preening cockatoo Kiki (Crispin Glancy).
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 21/5/20
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