THE MIDNIGHT FOLK
CAC at the ADC December 2001
Reviewed by John Shippey.

What a challenge: to put John Masefield's classic children's tale, with its own world full of governesses and witches, cats and owls and rats and foxes, toys coming to life, con-men and pirates – wild magic with an English country air – onto the stage! And how well CAC, with the admirable support of the Penguin Club, rose to that challenge!

The “newness” of the whole project, concept as well as adaptation and production, could either make the task of the reviewer easier (because there is no previous production to compare it with), or more difficult (for the very same reason!) I regard this lack of precedent as a rare opportunity…

There is no doubt that The Midnight Folk is a complex story. Not having read the original, my mind was not only open but fairly empty, so I was pleased that the convolutions of the plot were well explained in the script. However, there did come a point when I no longer needed the detail of what had happened, I just wanted the action to move on. This aspect was better handled after the interval rather than before, as I felt the pace picked up well in the second half. The early part of the play would have been better served with less wordy explanations and more wit. In a production which, of necessity, relied heavily on descriptive text, the songs provided lively and unexpected interludes.

One of the major impacts of this production was the complex set which served well the myriad changes of location which the story demands. There were sufficient special effects to entrance (for example Sylvia Daisy Pouncer's room with it's floating potions and books), but it allowed us as well to use our imaginations (when first Nibbins and later Caroline Louisa took Kay flying over the rooftops). There was sometimes a minor problem, almost unavoidable with using front- and back-lit gauzes, where movement could sometimes be seen through a "solid" wall (and, on one occasion when a walking shadow moved across the sky behind a flying Kay!)

And now the players. Those that that first come to mind are the oddballs – the witches (each with their individual characters, but who worked together so well in their coven), the Triggers, Rat, Sylvia Daisy Pouncer, Nibbins, the Toy Soldiers – who all had roles they could (and did!) revel in, giving the production a real spice. Working alongside such strong performances of these larger than life characters must have been a little unsettling at times for the others, who had to play it pretty straight, but who nevertheless pulled the story together and provided the essential links between the reality of the daytime and the magic of the Midnight Folk. First of these must be Kay who managed to maintain his air of bewildered excitement throughout – being carried along by the whirlwind of a story rather than making it happen.

With "Harry Potter" dominating cinema screens, and the draw of the seasonal glitz and glamour that is now offered in pantomime, Combined Actors deserves congratulations on even being prepared to stage a completely new children's show with a magic theme at this time of year. But all the necessary elements for success were there, and Richard Brown's production of his own adaptation did a good job in bringing them together into a rounded whole.