Credit: Farrows Creative
George MacDonald, author of over fifty books with titles including ‘At the Back of the North Wind’; ‘The Princess and the Goblin’ and – relevant to tonight’s production -‘Dealings with Fairies’ appears the perfect choice to bring forth a great soup of Victorian nostalgia and mysticism. Friend to Lewis Carroll, MacDonald’s works include a volume illustrated by artist Arthur Hughes (famous for being the hand behind the singularly most creepy depiction of Ophelia) who lavishly illuminated the words with curvilinear Pre-Raphaelite maidens, knights in armour and cackling, teeny goblins. It’s a feast of everything we either love or loathe about Victoria’s long sit on the throne, bumpkins and red velvet ribbons round a Christmas shortbread tin.
Walking in to the Tobacco Factory’s Christmas production, The Light Princess, this weekend it appeared that all the rose-entwined beauty of Hughes’s drawings and MacDonald’s words were going to rise up in a séance of Christmastide whimsy circa 1870. But what followed was an unpleasant mishmash of Widow Twankey costume, deleted lines from Carry On and humour broader than a Shetland pony’s arse. All of which would have been fine (or at least expected) if I’d accidently stumbled back in to my hometown’s AmDram panto, but within the otherwise almost impeccable programming choices made by the Tobacco Factory for the past and coming year, it was frankly bizarre. I say this as a compliment: we just expect so much more from the theatre below George Ferguson’s bedroom.
The set design of The Light Princess is by far the best thing about this confused Christmas concoction, although the cut-out paper puppetry à la Paper Cinema was also a charming and artistic addition. Indeed, if it wasn’t for other parts of the show being quite so irritating, the set on its own would almost warrant the buying of ticket, given both the beauty of it and the sheer ambition of having a working water-feature comprise most of the stage. The walls of the theatre answer the question of what happens to the fake flower industry in the down season post-Glastonbury headpieces and take you to the rambling roses of John Everett Millais by way of a Cath Kidston Santa’s Grotto.
The castle set behind it resembled that cute little German (or Swiss?) barometer stuck on the wall of my grandma’s conservatory, in which two jolly lederhosenites popped out to say hello based on the air pressure (and to shake their teeny fists against Michael Fish). It too promised a Christmas show of a calibre incompatible with puns so bad that even the attempted groans deflated faces into rubbery question marks. Or actual audible snores, in the case of the gentleman sitting directly next to me.
That he could muster the ability to fall asleep amid the cacophony of cruddy regional accents hollered from the stage was a credit to the man and surely preferable to passing two hours desperately trying to magic the liquid squirting from the water feature into all the gin of Victoria’s England, and then into my mouth. The overriding problem with this production was that it couldn’t decide if it was going for unashamed orange taffeta tackiness or if it was trying to be something we were meant to accept as being an at least partially decent piece of theatre.
The choice of music most vividly encapsulated this dichotomy. Written, conducted and, at times, performed by Verity Standen it was clearly meant to transcend the usual Disney power ballads and pop princessdom of Christmas theatre. Yet the fact that it backed a show that was nothing but groan-along panto pants jokes, just meant the doo-wappy barber shoppy songs perched awkwardly on top like a humbug on a Mr Whippy. Just about the only thing that might have saved this show was Miley Cyrus swinging a wrecking ball through Mariah Carey’s sugar tits Christmas hits, but instead they all just bloody harmonised and gave us not even the tail end of a festive ear worm to bob us along the icy streets. Aside from a theatrical set design to make Monty Don and his frogs pleased, this little light princess went down like a lead balloon.
