'The Snow Queen' at Bristol Old Vic

Photo: Mark Douet

Steampunk cannibals, animatronic aristocracy and flower power. These are just a few of the styles in the Bristol Old Vic’s slightly sinister new show for winter 2016.

Inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson tale of the same name, The Snow Queen (directed by Lee Lyford) is set in an idyllic village where neighbouring children Kai and Gerda have grown up side by side to become the very best of friends, with their hearts as pure as the whitest snow.

But when the tranquility of the village is rocked by the devastating disappearance of child after child, Kai and Gerda are the last two remaining… and the villagers realise that the legend of the wicked Snow Queen (Gwyneth Herbert) - who feeds off the souls of naughty children - might be true after all. So when Kai (Steven Roberts) ultimately falls under the Snow Queen’s spell, Gerda (Emily Burnett) must set out on an adventure to find her friend and bring him home.

The inspired stage design by Tom Rogers is just fantastic - an imaginative and ever-changing combination of rural villages, spiky ice castles, psychedelic florals and more. And the use of projections (both pre-filmed and live) was delightful and effective. Continuing the trend for incorporating the onstage musicians as part of the show, composer Gwyneth Herbert was brilliant as a multi-instrumentalist, conductor and the commanding voice of the Snow Queen.

However, an absolute highlight was a song by a sad reindeer (Dylan Wood) who had lived his whole life in captivity, performed pitch perfectly in the style of The Smiths… although, slightly, depressingly, perhaps the inclusion of The Smiths in a Christmas family show is a nod to the fact that most people of our age are now old enough to be parents. Argh, I suddenly feel very grown up! But it was delivered magnificently and had me in stitches. Bravo.

Photo: Mark Douet

I loved the animatronic Snow Queen, I really did. As a terrifying and monstrous creation, the mammoth puppet (maybe 9ft tall?) was extremely effective. With a face like an alien, white spikes jutting out all over her and gaping holes through her huge ghostly rib cage, in silhouette she was even more frightening than when revealed. Fantastic! And bravo to her various puppet masters who controlled her excellently throughout, as well as designer Marc Parrett.

Another delight were the goblin scientists who worked the wicked Snow Queen’s magic for her… with the lead scientist Dr Boffin (Joanna Holden) inventing all kinds of gadgets to make the Snow Queen even more villainous. Dr Boffin’s sidekick Apprentice (Dylan Wood again) was the perfect foil for her scatty professor schtick. And my scientist friend in the audience reliably informed me that this was an exact recreation of the kind of shenanigans scientists get up to in the lab all day. Who am I to doubt this?

Although a little frightening in places for junior audience members (it may contain scenes of what DVDs euphemistically call “mild peril”), The Snow Queen is yet another Bristol Old Vic triumph. The annual Christmas show from this favourite theatre has become a highlight on the cultural calendar, but after the soaring heights of Swallows & Amazons and Peter Pan it has taken a few years for them to produce something good enough to match. While The Snow Queen is not quite up there with the dizzy heights of Peter Pan (surely the finest Christmas production ever?), it is the Bristol Old Vic’s strongest Christmas show for several years. Enjoy!

The Snow Queen is performed at Bristol Old Vic until January 15, 2017. For more information and to book tickets, please click here.

'The Day Before Yesterday' - Noel Streatfeild

While waiting to get some keys cut in the market a few weeks ago, I had a rummage around the secondhand book stall and immediately my hand fell upon a lovely green hardback boasting the name of Noel Streatfield. Well known to many as the author of Ballet Shoes and all the subsequent spin-offs, Streatfield is a much-cherished writer whom many women of my age hold a very soft spot for. 

The Day Before Yesterday is a fantastic idea and an even more fantastic concept. Published in the 1950s, Streatfield realised that society was changing so fast that it needed to be recorded and it needed to be recorded by the people who had lived through those times. So with a focus on the period 50 years prior to publication, she asked all manner of people to share their stories of what life was like for them. And the ensuing book is presented at all stages of a girl's life, and crossing the class boundaries - for it is clearly a female reader for whom this book is intended. 

So we start with a Victorian nursery nurse, and move on to a school teacher, and a barely-teenage housemaid. We learn about the changes in transport, as the granddaughter of a coach king shares how her grandfather's empire grew from a few horse-drawn coaches to a fleet of thousands of motorised omnibuses that monopolised the London transport system. We heard first-hand from a suffragette on the frontline, in what is possibly my favourite segment - which is all the more poignant because it is not written by a 'famous' suffragette, but by a woman whose contributions and achievements to the women's rights cause might well otherwise be forgotten. 

This is a truly delightful book. A wonderful snapshot into the history of a long-gone ages that really wasn't so very long ago. As an added curiosity, the book I bought had originally been a school prize from a fee-paying girls' school in Bristol, won by a pupil in 1956. I wonder what happened to the woman who won this book and if she felt as inspired by it as I did, 60 years later? 

'Madame Solario' by Gladys Huntingdon

This feels like an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ moment. An admission of my own failure and confirmation that surely I’m missing something crucial if I could but see it. Because I’m sorry, but I really couldn’t get on with Madame Solario, which is one of the three new Persephone Books for the autumn.

I’m certain this this must be a failing with me and not the book. It must be. Because trying to prove myself wrong, I scoured the internet and read other reviews of Madame Solario that were unanimous in their love of the book, reverential about the writing and which embraced the characters completely. So why did I find it such a slog?

Originally published anonymously in 1956, Madame Solario caused quite a stir in its day with its accounts of unashamed love in a hedonistic summer at Lake Como in 1906. By the time of a 1980s reprint that revealed the author to be American writer Gladys Huntingdon, Madame Solario was accepted as a little-known but well-regarded literary triumph.

All of the ingredients were there for me to enjoy Madame Solario as much as everyone else seems to. Set in glorious Italy at the end of a turn-of-the-century summer, as the over-entitled upper-middle-classes swan about with a mixture of disregard and unrequited love for one another. Fabulous! What’s not to enjoy?!

But it just didn’t work for me. It took such a long time for anything to happen, and then an even longer time for anything else to happen. There were too many characters to try and distinguish from one another in the early chapters that I kept having to skim backwards to refresh my memory as to who they were. I found it impossible to care about any of the main characters, once I’d worked out who they were, and whether they found the happiness they felt they were entitled to. Ultimately it became a chore to read… and when there are so many books in the world that you’ll simply never have time to read, it feels wrong to spend time on a book you are not enjoying.

Of course, it is impossible for everyone to like a book, no matter how good it is. It’s all a matter of personal taste. And I feel I have missed something significant by not falling in love with Madame Solario the way that reviewers such as this one and all these have. So perhaps this will be a book I return to in a few years with fresh eyes and see anew. Here’s hoping.

'The Grinning Man' at Bristol Old Vic

Photo: Simon Annand

Victor Hugo wrote his novel The Man Who Laughs while exiled from France to Guernsey in 1869; exiled owing to the political content of his previous novels. So instead The Man Who Laughs focuses on a boy, Gwynplaine, who was mutilated as a child to have a permanent grin carved onto his face, committing him to a life in the freak shows. But his smile becomes infectious and soon Gwynplaine is embroiled in a quest to uncover his past that, inevitably, flutters over the heart.

While two Hollywood films and several theatrical adaptations have been attempted in the past, here Bristol Old Vic director Tom Morris gives the story of whole new lease of life as a brand new musical called The Grinning Man.

With some of the Kneehigh Theatre crew helping out (Carl Grose has written the script, and Patrycja Kujawksa is in the cast), and with Morris re-enlisting some of the Gyre and Gimble puppetry tricks from the hugely acclaimed War Horse, The Grinning Man is setting its flag quite high with a strong pedigree.

Taking our seats in the Bristol Old Vic auditorium, you’re instantly hit by designer Jon Bausor’s impressive work - with the entire proscenium transformed into a terrifyingly huge grinning mouth, with the blood red mouth creases spreading up the sides of the theatre and poking into the upper circle.

Transferring the narrative from Hugo’s France to Morris’ Bristol, our revamped story is narrated by the bitter clown Barkilphedro (actor Julian Bleach steals the show), who has served a lifetime in the royal court at the hands of the selfish and unappreciative Clarence family. But how is this story intertwined with that of the small boy, now named Grinpayne (and played by Louis Maskell)?

Child Grinpayne is portrayed by a puppet, and shows us the young boy being brutally separated from his mother and left to fend for himself owing to his hideously disfigured face. Upon saving a newborn baby whose mother died in the snow, he and the blind baby, Dea (Audrey Brisson), are taken in by kindly travelling performer Ursus (Sean Kingsley) and his dog Mojo (a work of puppetry genius from Gyre and Gimble). They grow up to live a life in the freak shows - notably the Stokes Croft Fair: a seedy underbelly of Bristol for those cast out by respectable society.

Of course, the stories of Grinpayne and the royal Clarence family become inextricably linked, and as Barkilphedro boasts of his past glories we uncover the true story of just what caused child Grinpayne to be separated from his natural parents and to be sentenced to an agonised life in the carnival. And all the while, Bausor’s designs continue apace throughout The Grinning Man, turning freak show carts into palace boudoirs, and the entire stage into a gothic cathedral complete with pillars and smashed stained glass. It’s all quite literally a work of art.

Combining the carnivalesque, the pantomime and the musical, Morris’ The Grinning Man is a feast for all of the senses - especially the ears, thanks to the live performances by the musicians at the side of the stage. Bravo!

Photo: Simon Annand

Read director Tom Morris’ diary about creating The Grinning Man in The Guardian here.

The Grinning Man is performed at Bristol Old Vic’s main theatre until 13 November. Click here for more information and to buy tickets.