Room On the Broom has been a much-loved staple of children’s bedtime reading since it was first published in 2002. Uniting the mighty pen of poet Julia Donaldson and the mighty paintbrush of Axel Scheffler, this short tale of friendship and teamwork in the face of adversity was much loved before it was given the Magic Light Pictures Treatment and released as a film in 2012. After that release, its popularity reached even further.
This production of Room on the Broom by Tall Stories has already been a big draw at the box office and will continue to be so due to its popularity over two different mediums. Does the theatre version live up to the standards already set? The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no.’
To begin with the positives, Room on the Broom is filled with lively performances by its bare cast of four. It also has fantastic songs; ‘Iggety, Ziggety, Zaggety, ZOOM!’ ‘I Need a Witch….with Chips’ and a country and western inspired ditty ‘sung’ by the frog in the story were particular highlights. The songs were lively and were woven expertly into the narrative of the tale. The musicianship and singing talent were no doubt boosted by the great acoustics within the grandeur of the fantastic venue that is the New Theatre.
The production, however, suffered from too many lulls in pace which meant that the attention of the largely young audience was not always captured. This was hardly surprising given that the source material stretches to barely five minutes reading time and this was a production lasting 55 minutes. There is inevitably a need to ‘pad’ out the story but, in doing this, a couple of glaring liberties were taken with the source material. For example, in the original book, the witch and her cat are minding their own business when they stumble across some new friends and encounter a fierce dragon, intent on making the witch his dinner. In the theatre production, the witch and the cat are actually on the hunt for a dragon in the first instance, which makes it hard to believe the witch’s terror and surprise when they finally catch up with the fire-breathing beast. I also don’t remember the witch being annoying in the original text either but that is how the character comes across on stage unfortunately.
To finish with a plus, the cast of four manage to punch above its weight, thanks to the clever use of puppetry for some of the characters. The dragon, when it finally appears, is also a larger than life presence and has a Welsh accent that is refreshingly not your typical comic caricature you often come across on stage or screen.
Is Room on the Broom good? Yes. Could it be better? Almost certainly.