“At this point in the evening, Conor looked as if he might be in contention for Best Actor.”
Millis’ and Sam Shulenburg’s adaptation, with a narrator who became a real character, opening with the line, ‘And they all lived happily ever after.’ There was also a servants’ scene, not in Pullman’s original, which helped to advance the action and some interesting mime as the thicket grew for a hundred years. All this made it a contender for Best Adaptation but in the end it was pipped at the post. After the interval, Marlowe gave us Bearskin , with a rather modern adaptation by Harvey Byworth- Morgan and Elba Mannes-Abbott. This story of a soldier, no longer needed in battle, who is tested by the Devil but gets his girl in the end, had some good moments under Harvey’s direction. The scenes in the forest and with the Devil and his flames were particularly memorable. Max Parfitt’s The Juniper Tree , for Grenville, which he also directed, won the prize for Best Adaptation and was one of the contenders for Best Play. It is the longest of the stories and has some visual complications. The wicked stepmother decapitates the boy but allows the daughter to believe she has killed him. The boy is fed to his father and his bones are buried under the juniper tree. Out flies a bird, which sings of the crime to all and sundry and gathers rewards for the good characters and a millstone to crush the evil one. Max’s production dealt deftly with all this, and there was some charming mime by Skai Campbell as the Bird,
good work by Leo Tidmarsh and Connor Bawcutt, and emotional moments in Max’s own singing. Jonson’s The Three Little Men in the Woods , adapted and directed by James Laurie, was awarded the Best Play prize. It has a complicated plot involving yet another wicked step-mother, a pretty daughter, an ugly half-sister and three Little Old Men who reward the beautiful and punish the ugly. The good girl ends up a queen, spitting gold coins, and the bad one belches toads and meets a terrible end. This was expertly handled by George Duggan’s sound effects. There were some powerful opening and concluding tableaux and a wonderful fire in the little men’s house, which reacted to their spells. Finally, Spenser gave us Toby Mayhew’s The Twelve Brothers , which he also directed with Izer Onadim. Beginning with a snatch of The Lion King , this was a modern interpretation of what is, in a bizarre way, a feminist tale. The king will kill all his twelve sons if the 13 th child is a girl. It is and he can’t because the queen has sent the boys away. The girl has to remain silent for seven years to save her brothers who have been turned into ravens and she is nearly burnt at the stake. Cue: ‘She’s just a girl and she’s on fire.’ I was not convinced by the references to Twitter but the music was wittily chosen, the transformation into ravens was well done and the play produced the best-delivered line of the night: ‘My word, you’re beautiful!’
MR CARL GILBEY-MCKENZIE (THE HALL SCHOOL)
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