The Stage

The Happy Prince

Published Wednesday 10 December 2008 at 16:25 by Pat Ashworth

Small children love this contemporary version of Wilde’s imaginative tale of the swallow who pauses to rest by a statue on her migration to Egypt. In the litter-strewn park garden where two children compete to make a story, a self-opinionated stone lion is stilled with sleep dust and the Prince bawls his eyes out to retain Swallow’s sympathies.

The audience is very involved at Lakeside, where they get to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star as the tiny, violin-shaped puppet musician gets warm enough to finish his composition. They scramble to retrieve the showered scraps of gold that first float on to the stage area and then get fired into the auditorium. A gentle fall of snow is another marvel, and the final magic of the fountain playing leaves them satisfied.

Charlie Buckland as the ebullient Hector and Nicky Rafferty as a homely Angel engage with the audience to convey the warmth and the fun. But they don’t quite succeed in creating the hostility and alienation of the town into which the Prince and the Swallow work their miracles, and the poignancy and tragedy that is the dying bird as winter falls and her journey south is no longer possible.