The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe -Leeds/Tour/GL/Brum

Or maybe a transfer to a long rumored 'in-the-round' season at a certain riverside playhouse...

I'm going! But not til nearly Xmas.

There’s nothing about the design of this that would have prevented it being done on the WYP’s thrust so I’m assuming it’s a purely financial decision given that the capacity has been increased by about 60% from what I could see. The temporary seating is actually quite comfortable and they haven’t been stingy with space so that’s ok. I think they May have sacrificed some of the studio space to provide the extra seating and access to the Quarry from what would usually be backstage, because there’s a big open space being used as a cafe and cloakroom for the extra seating. 

As for the show, I really enjoyed it. It’s difficult to see a childhood favourite adapted for the stage because obviously compromises have to be made, but it’s done with a lot of imagination and great deal of panache even though it’s a simple if not minimal set design. The entrance and exits through the wardrobe and the wintery Narnia scenes are really well executed. 

The ‘children’ all have northern accents which I thought was great. Not a smidge of Home Counties posh, they could have come from a council estate had there been such a thing back then. In fact all of the actors except the Witch use regional accents. Entirely appropriate given that 50% of the audience were northern kids. 
The animals are humans with animalistic costumes and characteristics. The beavers are in leather flying jackets with goggles, helmets etc which I didn’t quite get. 

Edmund is suitably snivelling, the witch is suitably evil, all the acting is great but Lucy looked older than Susan which jarred a bit. A couple of slightly Peter Pan audience participation moments which the kids loved.

Two grumbles, Aslan is depicted by both a huge puppet (think Chinese dragon) and a human. This works fine as a concept but the puppet version looked skeletal and a bit grubby and mean. Get some fur on it! And at the end where the kids are given their royal titles it’s all change. Now it’s “Rise Queen Lucy, Bringer of Light” and Rise King Edmund The Protector”. Eh? What’s all that about? 

All in all delightful and a bit emotional as it is a much loved story. Four stars. 

Bit of a drama on Thursday night, apparently. One of the actors jumped off a lamppost (on stage, not on a night out) and went straight through a trapdoor. Of course the show must go on so, after a 15 minutes delay, the action continued, with several humorous ad-libs added.

I finally got to see this last weekend after being unable to go a couple of times in December due to being ill. I loved this book as a child and this is one of my favourite venues so I really wanted to go. I couldn't remember much of the storyline (I was Googling it in the interval) but I really enjoyed it. I loved the puppetry, and the snow effects, and the fact the cat was called Schrodinger. I thought the staging was excellent, and I liked the audience participation. I was pleased to be able to sit in the extra seats at the back - although there were very few facilites back there, and a very long queue by the time I reached the main ones! I think it was great how they made use of the extra bit at the back, and if I'd never been there before I wouldn't known it wasn't normally set like that. I'm glad it sold well after they went to the trouble of installing the extra seats.

I’m excited about this, might even spring for advance membership or whatnot, although I do think the sightlines at the Bridge mean thereMs hardly a bad seat in the house.

Any age guidance from people with children who saw it? I can’t see anything on the site. Suitable for a mature five year old who goes to the theatre enough to know the NT Pinocchio was pants?

I appreciate this is an answer to a question you didn't ask, but the age guidance at what was then still the West Yorkshire Playhouse was 7+, but we're all slightly delayed in the grim north!

2 hours 40 minutes including an interval.

"Contains smoke and haze, loud noises, flashing lights and strobe."

This is very useful! I didn’t think to check their site.

It's also going to have Rush tickets available - got a notification from TodayTix earlier.

An absolutely fantastic production this afternoon at the Bridge Theatre. A full house from what I could see being sat in Gallery 3. A definite recommendation as an alternative to your traditional panto if your after some theatre suitable for the whole family over the festive period. A great cast with Laura Elphistone hitting the mark for me as the White witch.

The use of puppets for some of the characters worked really well (particularly Aslan) here. The actual staging I thought was cleverly done with the wardrobe and moving into Narnia and the winter scenes. Although predominately a play, there where a few nice songs in there to add to proceedings.

Some great lighting design by Bruno Poet. I wasn’t too sure about some of the costume design choices though (Mr and Mrs Beaver as WW2 RAF pilots didn’t really work for me. Although maybe the designers wanted to keep with the WW2 time period when the story was set?).

The young actors playing the kids came across as believable with their respective characters.



This is a bright and colourful production with plenty of heart and joy to be had over the 2hrs 40mins. I was certainly entertained and the production held the attention of all the kids sat around me for the entire time.

If there is one piece of advice to offer then being sat in the centre block seats of gallery 3 row b and c) will mean that due to the presence of some paper light shades suspended from the light rigging you may miss some if the back of the stage action at times. These are only brief moments but maybe something to consider.