Review – The Worst Witch

Show title: The Worst Witch

Venue: The Belgrade Theatre Coventry

Date 25 April 2019

Based on the books by Jill Murphy.  Script by Emma Reeves;  Songs and Score by Luke Potter

Director: Theresa Heskins

Reviewer: Tim Harding

Panto season may have ended a few months ago, but The Belgrade Theatre in Coventry was packed with families tonight, many cheering and booing along with the antics on stage.

They were there to welcome the arrival in Coventry of the girls and staff from Cackle’s Academy for Witches, who had come to give a show, telling about what does on at the magical school.   What then transpired was really a play of two halves.  In the first half we meet the eponymous Worst Witch Mildred Hubble, her best friends Maud and Enid, Ethel the school bully, along with teachers including the Snape-like Miss Hardbroom (there are a couple of nice, loving digs at the Wizarding World in Emma Reeves script) and the tea-and-bun-loving Headmistress, Ada Cackle.  We see the girls tackling every day classes such as potions and broom control, but, one exceptional aerial routine aside (choreographed by Vicki Amedume), there’s not a lot of drama going on.  The young audience were certainly enjoying the play, but were never really involved with it.

And then act two arrives, and with it the introduction of Miss Cackle’s evil twin sister Agatha, played, like Ada, by Polly Lister, clearly having the time of her life, camping it up, displaying a fine singing voice, and excellent comic timing in the dual role.  And with Agatha comes jeopardy and dark magic, and the play moves up several levels, as does the very willing audience participation.  Here the panto nature of the play really kicks in, with plenty of conversations directly with the audience encouraging them to get involved.

Clearly by now the audience members, young and old, were having a great time, and rightly so.  The show is tightly scripted by Reeves with excellent songs and score by Luke Potter adding greatly to the entertainment.  The music is all played live by the excellent trio of Molly-Grace Cutler, Megan Leigh and Meg Forgan who not only accompany the songs and play small characters in the action, but also provide a dizzying array of cartoon-style sound effects that are well chosen to enhance the action.

The cast, led by Lister and Danielle Bird as the hapless but strong minded Mildred are uniformly excellent and incredibly well drilled by director Theresa Heskins.  The pace of the action is relentless, the timing of the physical comedy and magical effects (John Bulleid, puppetry by Paschale Straiton)  impeccable.  Rachel Heaton (Miss Hardbroom), Rebecca Killick (Maud), Rosie Abraham (Ethel), Emma Lau (Drusilla) and Anna Crichlow (Enid) all give will characterized performances, Crichlow in particular displaying excellent vocals.

Supported by a very simple (at first glance!) set and excellent lighting and sound The Worst Witch will delight kids of all ages; the junior reviewers (both seasoned theatregoers at a young age) that helped write this were both entranced and thrilled by the production.

The show runs until 27 April and is then touring to Edinburgh, Birmingham and Liverpool. It has just announced a summer run at The Vaudeville Theatre in London.

Tags: The Worst Witch, The Belgrade Theatre, Jill Murphy, Emma Reeves, Luke Potter, Theresa Heskins, Polly Lister, Danielle Bird, Molly-Grace Cutler, Megan Leigh, Meg Foran, Rachel Heaton, Rebecca Killiack, Rosie Abraham, Emma Lau, Anna Crichlow, John Bulleid, Paschale Straiton

This review was first published on The Reviews Hub

What to write?

Hi there. Time to start a new blog, I think! But the question is what to write about. The problem is that I only really know a lot about 1 or 2 things, things that I have dedicated my life to over the past 20 years. And a few years ago I wrote a couple of articles, and made a couple of comments online based on many years of professional work in my field, and got shouted down very vocally by people who didn’t agree with my opinions. And I took this very badly, and disappeared back into my shell for several years.

Well, no more, I’ve decided. I believe I have a wealth of professional experience and knowledge in my field, and would like to impart some of that out to people who may be interested. You may not be interested in my blog; it will largely be about music and singing, musical theatre and music education. It will also undoubtably go into long spouting eulogies about my wonderful family at times. At other times it may venture off into opinions and speculations about another of my small obsessions, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and other film related topics.

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Here’s to a brave new world for me – believing that my opinion matters! Welcome to my little world 😉