Danny, The Champion of the World

Published Wednesday 9 January 2008 at 15:30 by Gerald Berkowitz

Originally staged by the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, this Birmingham Stage Company production starts slowly, with long stretches of static exposition as young Danny discovers that his father is a midnight poacher on a neighbouring estate.

Eventually Danny will join in and, when the landowner attempts revenge by having them evicted from their home, come up with a plot to foil the baddy’s pheasant shoot.

Early scenes are punctuated by the appearance of several colourful village characters, but it really isn’t until the pre-teens in the audience are incorporated into the play’s reality that they really get involved. House lights come up for what becomes a naturally raucous school assembly scene and again later for a town meeting to support Danny and his father, and the most fun comes as the audience is recruited to stamp and shout as beaters to scare away the pheasants and spoil the shoot.

The play glosses over Dahl’s dubious morality (poaching is good because it’s fun, hunting is bad because it’s just for fun) by establishing that everyone except the evil landowner supports Danny’s dad and shares in his booty. Gareth Warren is attractive and believably boyish as Danny, Richard Nichols stalwart and loving as Dad, Gareth Clarke hiss-inducing as the villain.