Pinocchio

Published Monday 19 December 2005 at 18:05 by John Percival

Will Kemp was the undisputed star at the premiere of this new Christmas show in Covent Garden’s Linbury Theatre. He played the wicked puppet master Stromboli, prowling about with sinister stride, brandishing his whacking stick, and seeming to relish more than any of the other characters his speeches and songs.

Matthew Hart, in the title role as the silly puppet Pinocchio, was not so hot at the talking and singing but I had to admire how well he sustained the doll-like movement of legs and arms even when tumbling in somersaults and cartwheels. The way his red tube of a nose elongated at his - rather contrived - single sequence of lying was clever too.

But there, I’m afraid, my praise has to end. Cathy Marston made a drearily coy Blue Fairy with her scooter and wand, and it seemed daft that she alone was given a recorded loudspeaker voice. Even the admirable Luke Heydon as Pinocchio’s would-be daddy, Gepetto, was defeated by the pseudo-foreign accent imposed on him. Also, to my mind, by the tiresomely silly confabulations of Phil Porter’s text and lyrics, although plenty of the first-night audience - which included regrettably few children - guffawed all through.

Martin Ward wrote the folksy tunes and the Quay Brothers’ settings are ingeniously but self-consciously contrived. The programme credits did not mention the original author but there isn’t much of a plot - mostly wild gesticulation and assing about in Will Tucket’s sloppy ensembles for a cast, with multiple alternates, surprisingly large in this small theatre.