Review: The Witches by Roald Dahl, Wharf Theatre, Devizes (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Review: The Witches by Roald Dahl, Wharf Theatre, Devizes

8:45am Monday 12th December 2011 in Theatre & Arts By Lewis Cowen

HAVING seen and thoroughly enjoyed Nicholas Roeg’s film of Roald Dahl’s The Witches I wondered how on earth the Wharf Theatre was going to translate it to their postage stamp sized stage.

Well, to be frank, they cheat a bit but nevertheless present a wonderful evening of rather creepy humour.

To put it in a nutshell, the plot revolves around an orphaned boy who takes his grandmother to a seaside hotel in Bournemouth so she can recover her health. The Norwegian grandmother (Dahl’s parents were Norwegian) has warned him about witches and said English witches are the worst.

A convention of witches, under the alias of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, is being held at the hotel and they are on the lookout for children they can transform into mice.

The boy and his rotund pal Bruno are duly transmogrified but get their revenge on the witches by slipping their own magic potion into their pea soup.

Jemma Barnes directs with her usual panache and any reservations at the minimalism of the production (most of the props are mimed and not very well either) are washed away in the sheer bravura and lunacy of the show.

Victoria Newell as the Boy and Lauren Harwood as Bruno are simply wonderful and very engaging. Sheila Weller is convincing as the Scandinavian granny and there is a brilliantly demented double act between chefs Abigail Newton and Anna Schofield. The finger puppets used to portray the transformed boys add more hilarity to proceedings.

But the evening belongs to the Witches themselves. There is a great deal of cackling and nasty business among Charlotte Catt, Mij Snook-Brown, Linda Swann, Beryl Baggs and Frances Hopwood with an inspired performance by Lesley Scholes as the horrendous Grand High Witch.

I understand there are a very few tickets left for the run, so go and grab them with both hands.