REVIEW | The Magician's Elephant, The RSC.

Photo by Manuel Harlan.

The Magician's Elephant

The RSC. 

★★★★

For the Royal Shakespeare Company, opening up the doors of their auditorium for the first time since March 2020 is a cause for celebration. This production of a new musical, The Elephant’s Magician has been waiting in the wings for its time to shine since it was commissioned back in 2017. There is nothing more fitting than this story of a community living through extraordinary times to bring their audiences back together in the wonderful auditorium over at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon.

This exciting new and intriguing musical adaptation by Nancy Harris and Marc Teitler takes a story from a beloved children’s author, Kate DiCamillo and sprinkles a little bit of magic and imagination to produce a beautiful show. Harris and Teitler have collaborated with design by Colin Richmond to really thrust us into the world of Peter Duchene and his town of Baltese. Baltese is a town where nothing extraordinary ever happens. The community is recovering from a recent war, it’s an isolated place with little hope. This bleak and depressing world shines through in the lighting and staging design of this show.

The town is full to the brim with various different characters who are all going through their separate struggles of despair and lack of fulfilled life. All of them play an integral role in how this story unfolds and each of their contribution delivers a stellar of a performance. At the centre of The Elephant's Magician is young Peter Duchene, an orphan who has lost both of his parents and is now driven by his determination to find his sister. Peter one day visits the local market where he stumbles upon a mysterious fortune teller who tells Peter to “follow the elephant” to pursue his true desires. 

Photo by Manuel Harlan.

The arrival of an elephant, conjured accidentally by a Magician sets off a chain reaction of events that not only help Peter in pursuit of finding his sister but also the entire town of Baltese too. The entire cast of this production are stellar, each have built their characters with great execution as a result. I love how they varied in their own stories. Jack Wolfe really leads the way as Peter. He is outstanding at capturing the journey of his character and aligned with control and beauty in how he delivers in thesong numbers too. I was captivated by his entire portrayal as Peter and how he was able to take the audience on a remarkable journey with him in this production.

Of course in this production, it’s all about the elephant and it certainly delivers a wow factor. The almost life-sized puppet really dazzles the audiences and captures the beauty of what can be done in theatre right now. You definitely look past the team of puppeteers (Zoe Halliday, Wela Mbusi and Suzanne Nixon) who transfix you with how they characterise every movement that elephant takes on the stage. Its clear to see that their research in underpinning those movements have been at the forefront of their work as puppeteers!

Photo by Manuel Harlan.

Photo by Manuel Harlan.

The musical score was well developed and definitely does the job of storytelling for this new production. For those unaware of the story will be easily swept along for the journey. The only downside for me personally was that I felt 35 musical numbers was too much for this show, leaving very little for the text to tell the story. It definitely needs some development there. I really loved how different songs integrated into the story, particularly ‘The Elephant Stomp’ but it definitely needed the use of tap shoes to make the choreography stand out even more. 

It is a lengthy musical at 2 hours, 40 minutes and it's completely different from other musicals I have seen at The Royal Shakespeare Company. I really liked how the darker themes were dealt with and there were definite emotional, uplifting moments in this show that were so lovely to experience. It is a well styled production and will intrigue new audiences with innovative ways to bring a children’s book to life!

I would however say that the reason this production has not earned its fifth star is that while individually each part of the performance, from musical numbers, to stage design, to costume, were stellar, the themes sometimes did not mesh well. The story would jump from a heart wrenching backstory of one of the characters to a jaunty song about finding a crime to charge an elephant with. This back and forth between comedy and emotion didn't often give you time to appreciate either fully and sometimes leaves you with a feeling of whiplash.

The Magician's Elephant plays at The Royal Shakespeare Company with booking until January 1st, 2022. Tickets are available from https://www.rsc.org.uk/