INTO THE WOODS (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre/Digital Theatre)****

 

By Imogen

Link: https://www.digitaltheatre.com/consumer/production/into-the-woods

Available until: Unknown

There is lots of theatre available for free on youtube but sometimes you just want to see a full-length musical and there just aren’t many available for free. Apart from bootlegs and obviously, I would never watch a bootleg. They are illegal and it shows a disgusting lack of respect for the cast and it causes theatres to lose money.

You can rent this for £7.99 or you can join the site for £9.99 a month and watch shows 24 hours a day if you want. I’m a subscriber, obviously. Or rather, my mum is. Because I told her it was a necessary part of my education. (And that she’d get to see David Tennant as Richard II.)

The Regent’s Park Open Air theatre is a great idea. Especially now. It’s all outdoors so you don’t need to worry about being indoors with germy people. But in this production, it doesn’t look very nice. The production is set in a wood (or at least in some trees) and it looks really messy and dirty. Directors Timothy Sheader and Liam Steel have got everyone running up and down a really dangerous wooden structure that looks like something out of an adventure playground. I’m surprised that wasn’t banned by health and safety, though all the people who died were characters in the story so I suppose Soutra Gilmour did quite a good job of the set in the end. But there’s no way I’d have agreed to something like that. Not unless you showed me photos of the Princes.

Into the Woods has 4 fairy tales which everyone’s heard of and another story which no-one’s heard of unless you’ve seen Into the Woods. Cinderella, Little Red Ridinghood and Jack (the beanstalk boy) go through their stories. Rapunzel appears as a minor subplot. Then there’s the Baker and his Wife who can’t have a child. In the first act everything happens as we expect. Cinderella and Rapunzel meet their Princes, Little Red Ridinghood sorts out the wolf and Jack kills the giant. In the second act, it turns out they’re not living happily ever after after all and the giant’s wife isn’t too happy about what Jack did to her husband.

Stephen Sondheim, who basically writes the whole thing, mostly did a good job of mixing the stories up together but it still annoys me how quickly Little Red Ridinghood’s story was resolved. I don’t see why they shouldn’t have made it go through the whole first half like all the other stories did. I also don’t think it’s realistic that Cinderella would prefer a Baker to a Prince. I know baking is really fashionable at the moment and a lot of people don’t like Prince Harry, which is just SO unfair, but hello, have you not seen that Prince?

The Princes were my favourite characters. Michael Xavier (who played Cinderella’s Prince and the Wolf) and Simon Thomas (who plays Rapunzel’s Prince) are gorgeous and it is so clever making them brothers and also crushing on other future Disney princesses. They are gorgeous and they both have really good voices and an absolutely massive hair-piece which really suits them. Even the guyliner looks good. Rapunzel couldn’t really help leaving hers but Cinderella you’re a muppet. Just saying. I know they’re being naughty with other women and that’s very bad but you shouldn’t give up all that money without a fight. At least get a good divorce settlement out of them and ideally the palaces too. (I know the giant stomped them but that’s not the point okay?)

I don’t think much of Cinderella’s priorities but I do like the performer who played her. Helen Dallimore has one of the few really beautiful voices and she is a likeable character. I’d let her clean my house. Alice Fearn is a bit wasted as drippy Rapunzel but you can tell she has one of the best voices in the cast.

Beverly Rudd gave Little Red Ridinghood lots of personality but I don’t know why they gave her such a horrible costume. I love the role but you wouldn’t catch me wearing that. Ben Stott’s Jack had less of a brain than Dorothy’s Scarecrow but there was nothing wrong with his looks. Or his singing voice.

Mark Hadfield acted well as the Baker. He was a bit pathetic but I’m sure that was just the character. I didn’t like the Baker’s Wife at all to start with. She was a bitch. But Jenna Russell won me round in the end. She’s so talented and it’s impossible for someone with my experience not to appreciate that. Hannah Waddingham actually managed to make me almost interested in the Witch as a character. Judi Dench is scary as the Voice of the Giantess. It was a bit weird making the Narrator a boy (Eddie Manning) but it all makes sense in the end.

This musical seems to say parents are idiots and I can’t argue with that. Cinderella’s dad marries an awful woman with 2 horrible daughters. Rapunzel’s mum locks her up. Jack’s mum is mean to him. Little Red Ridinghood is allowed to wander through woods on her own without even a handsome man to escort her (not that women are incapable but it’s just much nicer isn’t it?). And the Baker probably isn’t all that in bed even if he is under a curse.