Review: The Witches

Although I may have been one of the oldest audience members present, I couldn’t help but get a bit antsy before the theatre performance of one of my most nightmarish childhood reads, The Witches on stage at The Lowry. Dahl’s harrowing descriptions of numerous hysterical hags never quite escaped me to this day, especially coupled with Quentin Blake’s etched illustrations of their bald heads and square feet. I was eager to see what director Nikolai Foster would deliver with what seemed to me endless possibilities of reworking the children’s classic.

The Witches, as with most of Roald Dahl’s works, is a moralistic tale with copious doses of child cruelty, a wild mixture of animals and children and an infamously abominable villain. The Grand High Witch was performed superbly by Sarah Ingram, teamed with a highly expressive variety of grimaces and her ‘rrreally vunderful’ Germanic accent. Flanked by her cronies played by Sioned Saunders and Elexi Walker, the traditional witches’ metamorphosis into bald monsters was turned on its head as they were adorned with colourful wigs and costumes designed by Isla Shaw – an flamboyant twist on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, except this time pouring over a cauldron of ‘Formula 86 delay action mouse maker’. Despite meeting his unfortunate fate being turned into a mouse, Fox Jackson-Keen gave a happy-go-lucky portrayal of ‘Boy’, whose athletic ability kept the story moving.

The seven-total-cast were tremendous in their pan-musical ability to hop between instruments that were incorporated into an inventive set that was set in a dilapidated seaside town hotel, hosting the annual witches’ meeting. The stage nodded subtly to elements of other Dahl classics with oversized props and pyrotechnics, and although not as musically orientated as perhaps Tim Minchin’s musical score for the West End adaptation of Matilda, it struck the balance well impressing the audience with authentic sound effects, the odd musical chorus and optical illusions.

Despite only lasting one hour and fifteen minutes in total (a sensible decision made to pacify the younger members of the audience), it became clear that it was by no means a performance intended for this age bracket alone. Foster clearly understood the potential of Dahl’s far-reaching tales, moulding it for the purpose of her own exuberant interpretation but never losing sight of his imaginative capabilities to bring out the inner child in everybody watching. At times I found myself laughing out loud at its sheer outlandishness; however it was one that cleverly darted between the gruesome, touching, and the downright silly.

Unfortunately the chance to see The Witches for their Manchester dates has now been and gone, but the Leicester Curve/Rose Theatre Kingston companies are currently in the thick of a hectic UK tour, so keep your eyes peeled if you’re on the lookout for ideas for something that all of the family can enjoy.