The challenge in staging this title – far better known from the Walt Disney film than the Carlo Collodi novel – is to reimagine it without ruining it. There is no danger of the latter in the hands of such experts as dramatist Dennis Kelly, who wrote the book for Matilda, and John Tiffany, who directed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The team play on our memories of the movie Pinocchio while coming up with a brilliantly distinctive piece of theatre.
The big idea is simple but logical. Since the story is about a wooden creation who strives to be human, why not put puppetry at the heart of the show? So Geppetto, Pinocchio’s paternalistic creator, and the sinister Coachman who rules over Pleasure Island both become giant-size puppets: in each case their handlers include the actors, Mark Hadfield and David Kirkbride, playing the role. Even more intriguing is Jiminy Cricket. In place of the fruity-voiced figure of the movie, the role is here wittily played by Audrey Brisson who is one of the sprightly insect’s operators. It’s a nice irony that Brisson, last seen joining an Italian circus in the stage version of La Strada, here has to rescue Pinocchio from the clutches of a travelling showman.
The puppetry, masterminded by Toby Olié, is excellent. But the fascination of the show lies in the fact that it is like a modern version of a medieval morality play. The hero, who yearns to be human, is torn between good and evil: Jiminy Cricket represents his conscience while the Fox, energetically played by David Langham with top hat and tail, symbolises wicked temptation. It is the conflict between the two that makes up the story, with the Blue Fairy representing a dea ex machina always ready to save Pinocchio from his errors. It is typical of this version’s maturity that the Fairy, an anodyne cutie in the movie, is here played by Annette McLaughlin as a figure of magisterial kindliness.
That ability to evoke the film while radically rethinking it is perfectly seen in Martin Lowe’s adaptation of the original score. All the songs are there, including the somewhat cloying When You Wish Upon a Star, but they have been put to new use. An Actor’s Life for Me becomes a rousing ensemble that straddles several scenes and I’ve Got No Strings turns into a big number in which the doll-like dancers finally crumple into a heap while Pinocchio defiantly struts his stuff. Joe Idris-Roberts as the hero is here at his best in that he captures the sheer exultant joy of self-propelled movement.
It all makes for a rich evening that, as my 12-year-old grandson pointed out, is scary as well as funny. Tiffany as director and Bob Crowley as designer also know how to combine simplicity and spectacle. Stepladders evoke the scholarly world Pinocchio escapes.
Pleasure Island, however, looks like a riotous Blackpool funfair reimagined by Piranesi, and the famous whale that devours the central characters is suggested through headlamps and a ribcage in which the bones curve like the arches in a Romanesque cathedral. This may not be as terrifying as the massive Moby Dick-like mammal in the movie but, like everything else in this production, it shows how the fable of the puppet who wants to be human has been delightfully reanimated.
- At the Lyttelton, National Theatre, until 10 April. Box office: 020-7452 3000.
