REVIEW: Stratford Youth Theatre’s production of The Spiderwick Chronicles is full of spirt
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YET again Stratford Youth Theatre (SYT) knocked it out of the park for their latest show, The Spiderwick Chronicles, which ran at the Bear Pit from the 14th to 17th February.
The company’s previous offering was The Clopton Ghosts, an original story that weaved Shakespeare-era history of local family the Cloptons, with stories from Covid times. It was bold and great fun – with plenty of jump scares and excellent performances from the young cast.
This time round, founders of SYT’s, husband and wife team, writer Sarah Plowright and director Aaron Bixley, have taken on the ridiculously ambitious task of putting fairly complex children’s fantasy novel The Spiderwick Chronicles, by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, on stage.
The story follows The Grace family, who, after finding a mysterious, handmade field guide in the attic of a ramshackle old mansion, discover that there is a magical and maybe dangerous world existing parallel to their own — the world of Faerie. They find themselves hunted by a band of menacing goblins and constantly pranked by their very own house brownie who will stop at nothing to prevent the secrets of the book from being revealed.
Although the book was previously made into a Hollywood feature film, this is the first time a stage adaptation has been attempted – which had the full blessing of the authors.
The adaptation is nothing short of brilliant. Sarah has managed to condense lengthy scenes, dialogue and timeframes into an easy-to-follow story, which sparkles afresh. Meanwhile under Aaron’s careful guidance, the action bubbles along nicely with nary a pause, reaching with pace and tension towards a thrilling climax.
Teens getting the creeps in haunted mansions seems to be a speciality of SYT (hello Clopton Ghosts) and here set, lights and sound conjure a proper spooksome atmosphere, much to the delight of the audience.
Before we move on to the cast, credit must be given to the utterly brilliant set – creaky doors, hiding spaces and fairy rings galore – and stupendous costumes, from elegant fairies, gnome-like brownies, evil shape shifters, goblins and hobgoblins (there’s a difference!) each is given real personality with outlandish garb. So shoutouts to everyone, including Sarah for costumes; Christopher Hawkins for lights; Jude Bixley-Plowright for sound; Adrian Adamson scenery; Phoebe Lawrence for make-up; and stage management care of Bella Charlton, Imogen Ford and Freddie Beck. We all know that young productions depend on help from mums, dads and chaperones so big up to them too.
Perhaps the greatest thing about the show was the way that it blended a fantastical show full of warring fairy folk with a modern-age believability – teen angst and family domestic drama felt real, and that seemed to be in no small thanks to the naturalness that the actors of the Grace teenagers and their friends brought to their roles. Troubled hero Jared Grace was lent real spirit and confidence by Paige Hopper; while siblings Mallory and Simon were given unique characters by Faith Corry and Jameson Lawrence.
On the mythical creatures side of things, great performances were also notable by Issy Tombs as a chirpy Thimbletack and Noah Guest as a comical Hogsqueal. But really they were all splendid – I loved the rampaging and barking goblin folk, while the elegant fairies were alluring and just a bit scarily assertive. Everybody on stage deserved the keen applause that greeted their performances.
It was also great that the adult roles were played – very assuredly – by appropriately aged grown-ups – which again lent real believability and dynamic tension to relationships.
No apologies for this review sounding a bit gushing, really I felt properly transported to another world for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon in Stratford – and can’t wait to see what SYT get up to next.
