To be honest, if you haven’t heard about this show by now, you must have been living under a stone, working far too hard, or not reading Cherwell (shame on you if so). So I won’t bore you by recapping what it’s all about. Three orphaned children must go to London to live with their mysterious uncle Philip in his London toyshop, where he rules as tyrant and master, forcing them to watch his sinister puppet shows. While it might be very easy to think that, from the hype, this play might be an example of style triumphing over substance, I am happy to report that, though this play is stylish and visually stunning, it demonstrates a consistently high quality of acting, and as a production, reaches a level of polished togetherness that is to be applauded.
Bella Hammad shines as Melanie, our fifteen-year-old female protagonist, whose perilous and prematurely instigated ascent into adulthood forms the structural backbone of the piece. For an actress so new to Oxford’s scene, she has truly gripped it fervently and, judging by this performance, will become one of our most in-demand performers. She manages to capture the character’s paradoxical attributes of cautious innocence, enforced maturity and sexual curiosity, while still maintaining a great deal of humour. She spends much time alone on the stage, especially in the first act, but her great confidence and believability as an actress lends her a presence that I certainly relished. At the other end of the scale, Will Spray must be mentioned for delivering a truly terrifying performance as Uncle Philip.
The original score by Hertford second-year Laurence Osbourn is written for string quartet, which worked well, despite my previous suspicion that a show so fantastical and at times zany would need more instrumental colour. The score channels Shostakovich’s quartets quite strongly, definitely bringing out a certain sobriety and mournfulness, but also creating a sense of disquieting timelessness. However, though I very much enjoyed the fractured, relentless counterpoint of the score, I found some of the recorded sound effects unnecessary and haphazard, especially the lengthy plane noises and shaken radio sounds at the beginning. It was also a shame that the climax of the play – the uncomfortably beautiful swan scene – was let down by the choice of the Swan Lake Prelude to accompany it. It seemed a lazy choice, and I wonder whether Osbourn might have been able to come up with something more fitting, referencing the Tchaikovsky, instead of simply blasting the piece into the audience.
Choreographer Fionn Cox-Davies is largely successful in his attempts to make puppets come to life on stage, though sometimes the female puppets lacked the presence of Joel Phillimore’s towering performance. The latter’s movement was excellent the whole way through, while the other two seemed to lose poise from time to time. This doesn’t, however, detract from the fact that the physical aspects of the play are exceptionally tight (despite a few ungainly scene changes) and the very early apple-tree scene is as beautiful and fluid a piece of theatre as I have seen for a very long time.
The Magic Toyshop will always be a boy-meets-girl tale, says Theo Merz, who adapted the play from Angela Carter’s novel. We do get a very strong sense of the romance that underpins the danger, and there is a genuine warmth about the two young lovers that Merz seems to bring out well.
Throughout, I kept having to remind myself that this is a student production, so beautiful and professional was the staging and the use of lighting. The Magic Toyshop is a play whose failings are small, whose methods and ambition have been nothing short of incredible, and which deserves to do well.
Four stars
The Magic Toyshop is at the Oxford Playhouse until Saturday.
