George's Marvellous Medicine - Charter Theatre, Preston - 05/03/10
IT'S hard to match the genius of Roald Dahl, but Dave Wood's stage adaptation of this wonderful tale is truly marvellous.
The Birmingham Theatre Company do a superb job of bringing this madcap tale to life and the play stays faithful to the original while adding its own touches.
Geoge is looking forward to half-term at his farmhouse home - until his mum drops the bombshell that his grandma is coming to stay.
George's gran turns out to be a gin swilling geriatric who is as hideous and disgusting as in the book.
So George decides to give the bad-tempered battleaxe a taste of her own medicine by replacing her medicine with his own specially created potion.
All the acting is outstanding and Clark Devlin does a great job as George and is cheekily lovable as he bounds around the stage.
He befriends the audience and chats conspiratorially to them as he wanders through the house and garage throwing ingredients into a saucepan to create the perfect potion.
Everything from shampoo to lipstick, brown paint and flea powder goes into the concoction and children in the audience delightedly yell "In" whenever George holds up yet another item and asks them whether it should go in the pot.
The bossy and grisly grandma steals the show by being wonderfully evil and using a variety of surly facila expressions as she barks out her orders.
Everyone watches with awe as George gives his grandma her medicine and she suddenly shoots up through the ceiling while her feet remain on the floor.
The way the grisly grandma grows to an amazing height remains a mystery and the special effects are very realistic.
When George tries his medicine on some of the farm animals, a giant chicken and giant pigs race around on stage in true farce.
George's dad's business brain starts whirring and he dreams of revolutionising the farming industry with supersize chickens and cows and he and George try to recreate the formula.
But each attempt goes wildly wrong and the effects are incredibly life-life and funny as one chicken grows an immensely long neck, while another batch of medicine produces enormously long legs and then they mistakenly produce a shrinking medicine.
Youngsters howled with glee throughout the performance and their enthusiasm was infectious.
At the end of the play, an amusing yet sensible announcement urged children not to try this at home to prevent hordes of kids emptying out kitchen cupboards trying to create their own magic medicine!
Aasma Day
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Weather for Preston
Thursday 29 July 2010
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 15 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 28 mph
Wind direction: West
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