Review: Malory Towers, Passenger Shed

Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers post-war series of girls’ school stories has been a staple for young girls (and adventurous boys who may one day grow up to be theatre reviewers) for decades. It’s therefore no surprise that the audience for this adaptation is predominantly female, from eight-year-olds jiggling with excitement to groups of more mature women looking forward to revisiting their childhood.

In adapting Malory Towers. Emma Rice – former artistic director of the illustrious and inventive Kneehigh, and now heading her own company Wise Children – has undoubtedly taken on one of the icons of happy childhood reading.

There is a certain amount of frowning from older audience members before the show, as the stage features scruffy schoolgirls with mobile phones and doors marked ‘Welfare Assistant’ and ‘Head Teacher’. Surely they haven’t updated the cosy world of Malory Towers to the 21st century?

All pics: Steve Tanner

But the modern setting merely serves as the lead-in to a transformation scene rather blatantly inspired by The Wizard of Oz, whereby poor mousy Blyton reader Mary-Lou is knocked unconscious and finds herself transported to her favourite school.

It would be nice to be able to describe this Bristol Old Vic / Wise Children co-production as a tuckbox filled with goodies, but in reality it’s more of a curate’s egg: good in parts.

Heading the list of good parts is undoubtedly the cast: a top-class ensemble with charm and great singing voices – especially Rebecca Collingwood as Gwendoline Lacey, who has a perfect mid-century vocal style that definitely merits the lead in any forthcoming staging of Salad Days.

Stand-out actor is Francesca Mills (Sally Hope), who is able to flawlessly encapsulate the cut-glass pure niceness of a Malory Towers girl, but is also highly comically adept as Sally briefly descends into directorial megalomania when producing the class play. The staging is as inventive as one would expect from Rice, and the use of projected graphics to lend a whole new dimension to the stage is a delight.

But sadly the story, the essence of any stage production, does not live up to this top-quality cast and imaginative staging. Older audience members whose Blyton-reading days are behind them will recognise various episodes drawn from different books in the series. But, rather than forming a coherent narrative, these feel more like a pick and mix Malory Towers sampler which never quite manages to capture the atmosphere, ethos or characters that Blyton creates so engagingly in young readers’ minds. In some ways, the adaptation seeks to include both too much and not enough.

There are definitely parts of this production that will appeal to the young. Young audience members spoke highly of the contemporary bookending of the period action, and of the singing and dancing. How much they will engage with the large chunk of A Midsummer Night’s Dream pasted into the piece, or cope with the really quite brutal emotional scenes in the second half is more questionable. And, whilst for older Malory Towers fans it is quite fun to enjoy this selection of greatest hits, there is a lingering sense that something essential from Blyton’s work has failed to make it onto the Passenger Shed stage.

Malory Towers continues at the Passenger Shed until Sunday, August 18. For more info and to book tickets, visit bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/malory-towers

Read more: Preview: Malory Towers, Passenger Shed