So I’ve taken heed of criticisms and comments and thus present to you this
(p)review of brand new musical
The Light Princess which has just opened at the
National Theatre. I want to try and give a flavour of the production, which I
saw last night on its second preview, but without reviewing it in the
traditional sense. So below you will find a spoiler-free preview of the show, with links to interviews and other features and illustrative clips and snippets. Beware, some of the links will reveal some key aspects of the production but it is clear which they are, and you will have to actively click on them to access them - in my world, spoilers are absolutely fine as long as you have the choice not to read them if you don't wish...
So first things first – how gorgeous is the poster image for the show? Shot by
Jason Bell, Rosalie Craig looks simply gorgeous and suitably Tori-esque – a happy
accident rather than a deliberate choice – and you can read more about how the
picture was composed in
this interview with Craig here. The story was suggested
by the 1864 writings of George MacDonald and
Tori Amos (music and lyrics) and
Samuel Adamson (book and lyrics) developed and reworked it into something of a
teenage fairytale – it’s not quite child-friendly but it isn’t too far off. The show has long been in production and there's a fascinating wealth of marvellously frank interviews and information about the creative process, its difficulties and delays, from both
Adamson and
Amos.
The heirs of neighbouring and warring kingdoms have both
lost their mothers,
having issues with their fathers and
their grief has manifested itself in different ways: Princess Althea avoids
anything serious by becoming weightless and casting off all worldly concerns;
Prince Digby has taken the loss far harder and in his grief has solidified into
something impossibly solemn. When the pair meet in the neutral ground between
their lands – a
magic forest-like Wilderness – teenage passion erupts but the
depth of feeling unleashes new emotions of all colours, precipitating overwhelming
consequences for all.
As for the show itself, the staging is hugely and suitably imaginative, delving
into a more Grimm-like world of darker fairytale. The way in which Althea moves
(“I don’t fly, I float”) is stupendously done with
a bit of this and
a bit of that. There’s a whole load of romance (You are…you are Althea), there’s a huge
deal of wryly observed comedy -
intelligent jabs at gender politics as well as more crowd-pleasing moments, there’s even some of
my pet hate which proves
endearingly wonderful. Visually the piece is boldly striking
too – design is daring and
movement is fluid.
Musically, there’s the real treat of hearing Amos write for men for the first
time – Nick Hendrix’s Prince (
“sweet of voice as he is buff of bicep”) making a
swooning romantic hero and Clive Rowe’s super-powered
vocal makes you really want
him to release an album of Tori covers. Toriphiles will recognise bits and bobs
(
I spotted this but there’s probably more) and MD Martin Lowe places a
Bösendorfer at the centre of the musical soundscape so there’s never mistaking the genesis of
this score.
Rosalie Craig has long been building up to what could possibly be a massively successful break-out role for her, her physical conditioning has to be seen to be believed, and supported excellently by
Amy Booth-Steel, this brand of Tori-feminism beautifully tempers wildness of spirit with worldly responsibility.
So there you have it – hopefully I have whetted the appetite without giving too
much away. I’ll be revisiting the show soon so will post a ‘proper’ review then
but in the meantime if you can’t wait, you can read
this sparkling marvellous review here. If you
follow me on Twitter, then in some ways this is all a moot point as I was more than frank about my opinions of the show, but this an experiment, I’m playing with something new – it may work, it may not, I don’t know if I’m even going to stop reviewing previews in the future but nothing ventured, nothing gained…