‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ has always been the poor sibling to the similar ‘Mary Poppins’ (also with music by the Sherman Brothers), but it has always been one of my favourite Disney films (if only to see Angela Lansbury before she moved to Cabot Cove and everyone started dying around her). Therefore the announcement of a stage musical of ‘B&B’ touring the UK meant that I booked a ticket for Woking. Replacing Ms. Lansbury as the trainee witch, Eglantine Price, was to be Dianne Pilkington who I saw in ‘Young Frankenstein’ a few years ago (and who until the lockdown closed all theatres was Raquel in ‘Only Fools and Horses: The Musical’).
Having negotiated the ‘new normal’ of having to demonstrate my Covid vaccination status before being let into the auditorium, I took my seat and flicked through the programme. Soon, the lights went down and we were no sooner introduced to the Rawlins family during the Prologue, then the children’s parents were killed in the Blitz in a sequence that was slightly confusing and much darker than your average Disney musical. However, soon the orphaned children were in the museum in Pepperinge Eye having been evacuated, and following a few new songs (one of which I have later learnt was a Sherman Brothers song cut from the film) we were back to the recognisable narrative with Miss Price picking up the children (and her new broom).
Rightly for a story about magic, it was the stage illusions (by Jamie Harrison) that impressed most, with the flying bed being the highlight, even if it hovered rather than flew. There was also excellent use of puppets, particularly in the section on the Isle of Nopeepo (However, don’t go expecting to see the football match). The new songs (by Neil Bartram) out-Shermaned the Sherman Brothers, and all the classics from the film were present, including ‘Portobello Road’, ‘The Age of Not Believing’, ‘The Beautiful Briny’, ‘Substitutiary Locomotion’ (‘Treguna, Mekoides, Trecorum, Satis, Dee’), the cut ‘A Step in the Right Direction’, and even my guilty pleasure ‘Eglantine’.
Charles Brunton’s Emelius Browne was as inept as his film counterpart, with the children being led by Conor O’Hara (a recent Mountview graduate) as Charlie, who somehow (similar to Wendy in ‘Peter Pan’ pantomimes) managed to convince as a thirteen year old boy, even when acting opposite two actual children. However, it was Diane Pilkington’s central performance that held the whole thing together.
However, as we approached the ending, Brian Hill’s book took a rapid swerve, with the tone shifting back to the darkness with which the production opened, before the obligatory (if confusing) happy ending. The production was well received by both adults and children watching, and I would certainly recommend it if it comes to a theatre near you
‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks: The Musical’ is touring until May 2022.
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