The Everyman is billed as “Gloucestershire’s Theatre” and, with its in-house productions, is often very conscious of that. Although Beatrix Potter is usually associated with the Lake District, it was while she was visiting the West Country county that she penned one of her most famous, and she claimed her favourite, story. The theatre’s creative director, Paul Milton, has adapted The Tailor of Gloucester for the stage and has made not a bad job of it.
He has cleverly split the action between a “live” Miss Potter writing her book and then, as we go along, she interacts with the characters as the story is spun. She is always there or thereabouts, either observing or participating in the scenes. The device worked well and Madeleine MacMahon was a very prim and proper Beatrix Potter, in a schoolma’amy sort of way, usually there to keep a strict eye on things.
This Tailor of Gloucester was, for all intense and purposes a pantomime, lacking only a dame and a slosh scene. There were the little asides to get the audience going – proclaiming Gloucester, poo-pooing Cheltenham, lots of songs for the very large chorus and plenty to do for the young local dancers. The music by Peter Banks was very nice but I thought it a bit strange that the only songs were for the ensemble. I think the show would have benefited from the principals having a song or two each, there was ample opportunity. Another little niggle was why they chose to change the most famous line in the book, “no more twist” in favour of “no more thread”. Out of context “twist” may not mean much but in the context of the story it is obvious what it means. If five year-olds reading the book can understand it, surely a theatre audience could. But anyway . . .
Some of the set pieces worked well and I liked the sequence where the mice were making the waistcoat – in a normal musical it would be called the ballet. But I thought the real strength of the production was its appearance. Gloucester based designers Phil R Daniels and Charles Cusick Smith really hit the nail on the head by taking for their inspiration for the set sketchy, architectural-type drawings. The beautiful, subtle colours were enhanced by Michael E Hall’s striking lighting. Visually the production was outstanding.
However, this was essentially an amateur show supported by four professional actors. Apart from Ms MacMahon, Mark Carey was an energetic and rather over the top buffoony Mayor while Richard Curnow was a very amiable and likeable Tailor. Craig Rogers was convincing as Simpkin the cat.
Because the vast majority of the performers were amateurs it would be unfair to judge this production by normal standards, so no star rating. It was what it was and everybody, both sides of the proscenium arch, seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves, and that’s the main thing. Michael Hasted 4th August 2016
