![STARS: Christian Morrison and Jocelyn Kendall in Jack and the Beanstalk: A Gigantically Amusing Musical. STARS: Christian Morrison and Jocelyn Kendall in Jack and the Beanstalk: A Gigantically Amusing Musical.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ca9PEGecaS6H9cg52NNyKi/769e12e0-53c0-47b5-8fc3-fe998cdcf72c_rotated_270.jpeg/r0_170_3024_2536_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
WHEN British writer Roald Dahl reworked in 1982 six traditional fairy tales as poetic works with amusing surprise endings and had them published in a book called Revolting Rhymes he had no idea how successful the collection would be.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
They have been adapted for the stage as comic works and musicals, with people of all ages enjoying the shows. And they have certainly been popular with staging teams.
Hunter training company WEA, now known as ATWEA, is staging one of the musicals, Roald Dahl's Jack and the Beanstalk: A Gigantically Amusing Musical, as a school holiday show at its Creative Arts Space (CAS) theatre in Hamilton from October 3 to 5, as part of its Young Directors Program and Youth in Performing Arts courses, with a 17-member cast of young performers aged five to 14. And the musical's directors, Isabella Sykes and Jack Andrew, are both aged 15.
The musical, which runs for a brisk 45 minutes and includes 12 bright songs, began life as a 1996 concert-style show commissioned by the Roald Dahl Foundation, that combined narration and music by Latvia's Georgs Pelecis, with its success leading to a musical theatre adaptation by composer-playwrights Ana Sanderson and Matthew White. Jack is played by Christian Morrison and his mother by Jocelyn Kendall, with Eden Marshall and Rosa Crispin manipulating and voicing a literally Giant puppet. Isabella Sykes notes, with a smile, that they have given physically special twists to the giant.
The large ensemble of young performers play friendly farm animals, including Daisy, a cow that Jack's mother makes him take to a market to sell, pigs, chickens and dogs, and market sales people who behave in very different ways. And Dahl certainly put in amusing elements that aren't in the original fairy tale, such as having the Giant able to smell people who don't wash themselves regularly, with Jack, as he climbs the beanstalk in search of gold leaves that are at the top, hearing him sing "Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!"
![CLIMBER: Christian Morrison plays Jack in Roald Dahl's Jack and the Beanstalk: A Gigantically Amusing Musical. CLIMBER: Christian Morrison plays Jack in Roald Dahl's Jack and the Beanstalk: A Gigantically Amusing Musical.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ca9PEGecaS6H9cg52NNyKi/f8d87f5d-2473-4d4e-8607-a537b1817f66.jpeg/r0_0_1536_2048_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Despite his young age, Jack Andrew, has had a notable acting career, following in the footsteps of his acclaimed mother, singing teacher and performer Joanna Andrew. Jack has performed in many shows, including professional productions in Sydney, and in 2018 won a CONDA nomination for a Male Actor Under 18 for his performance in the musical The Addams Family. This year, Jack and his mother worked together in Opera Hunter's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. He applied to be a member of the ATWEA young directors course to further increase his theatre abilities.
"It's certainly a new experience," he said. "Isabella and I put everyone's input into the show."
Roald Dahl's Jack and the Beanstalk has performances at The Creative Arts Space, 145 Beaumont Street, Hamilton, on Thursday, October 3, at 11am and 2pm; Friday, October 4, at 2pm and 7pm; and Saturday, October 5, at 11am and 2pm. Tickets: $10.50. Bookings: www.trybooking.com.
Review: Sorry to cut you off
Penny Tantrum Youth Arts, in association with PACT Civic Playhouse, Newcastle. Ended September 14
THIS play, developed by Tantrum's 2019 Trajectory Ensemble, in collaboration with acclaimed playwright David Williams, was a bright and lively 60-minute work, and understandably received good reviews when it premiered in Sydney's PACT Theatre. The four ensemble members - Alana McGaughey, Meg O'Hara, Daynah Simmons and Phoebe Turnbull - played young women whose dinner get-together coincided with the telecasting of the results of this year's federal election, with the ever-changing background clock moving between 6pm and 11.10pm. The audience never got to see a TV, but voices, including that of Penny Wong, were occasionally heard, with interviewers switching away from Penny when other politicians gave responses to questions. And the four women showed very real natures with their words and expressions. One took offence to Clive Palmer wearing a yellow shirt, snarling "I hate people wearing yellow", and she had a yellow hair band, top piece and sandshoes. A vegan cake that one had brought to the party got very different reactions and they did a lively dance with tea towels in their hands when bright music came up. And their mashing of boiled potatoes coincided with a woman's voice that sounded like Julia Gillard's declaring that "I will not be lectured by this man".
Review: DNA
Upstage Youth Theatre, Maitland Regional Art Gallery. Ended September 14
IT was good to learn that Maitland's art gallery asked Upstage Youth Theatre to stage shows in its venues over the next three years. But this first production there indicated that more care needs to be taken in the presentations. DNA, by English writer Dennis Kelly, shows how the tricks played by a group of teenagers lead to the death (perhaps) of one of their number, with their diverse reactions revealing the impacts it has on them. And there are a lot of amusing moments in their responses. The show, however, didn't work as well it should have, with the actors performing in front of a wall-sized artwork that certainly didn't help to establish the movements of the young people around fields, forests and streets. And there were sometimes more characters on stage than the script allowed. The 11 young actors certainly were keen to bring out the natures of the people of their age and the changes that something like this could cause. But Upstage needs to take more care when staging works in this venue.