The Worst Witch
Vaudeville Theatre, London Until September 8, 2hrs 10mins
Long before Harry Potter there was Mildred Hubble – a luckless pupil at Miss Cackle’s Academy For Witches. Jill Murphy’s brilliant stories (first published in 1974) are given a loving transformation by Emma Reeves, who also wrote the CBBC version.
It’s not totally clear why this needed to be a musical rather than a play, and the occasional songs are pretty bland, but a rocking live band do keep things upbeat, and the grown-up witches get some fun, jazzy numbers.
Smartly, Reeves opts for a play-within-a-play structure: the girls are energetically putting on their own school show (a charming excuse for the lower-budget illusions). But one spell that’s certainly broken is that of the fourth wall, when Miss Cackle’s evil twin makes an appearance in the wings, and begins a plan for world domination right there in the theatre.
Smartly, Emma Reeves opts for a play-within-a-play structure: the girls are energetically putting on their own school show (a charming excuse for the lower-budget illusions)
In truth, the show feels as if it connects better with its adoring young audience when it sticks to Murphy’s well-loved tales, but it’s pleasing to see an adaptation that really wants to play with its new status as theatre rather than slavishly recreating the book.
Led by Mildred, all the witches – and the audience – must pitch in to help good overcome evil, and Reeves’s script offers kind-hearted lessons on friendship and co-operation trumping individualism and ambition.
Trying your best turns out to be more valuable than being the best.
Rachel Heaton (above) makes for a magnificently withering Miss Hardbroom, and the witches’ cats are created through deft, meowing glove puppets
Danielle Bird is winning as the harum-scarum Mildred, who in this retelling winds up at Miss Cackle’s academy by mistake – she’s not actually meant to be a witch. The stage is therefore set for a message of social inclusion: poor, accident-prone Mildred is bullied by the privileged, posh Ethel Hallow (Rosie Abraham), who comes from an elite witching family.
They play off each other wonderfully: Mildred is scatty and scrappy, Ethel snotty and snobby.
There’s strong work, too, from the frantically doubling Polly Lister as the two Miss Cackles, while Rachel Heaton makes for a magnificently withering Miss Hardbroom, and the witches’ cats are created through deft, meowing glove puppets.
Enchanting stuff.
Cruel Intentions: The ’90s Musical
Assembly George Square Gardens, Edinburgh
Until August 25, 1hr 15mins
Rating: 
The 1999 cult movie, based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses, about privileged, manipulative, sex-mad American teenagers, is given the musical treatment here – with a live band playing Nineties pop hits, from Christina Aguilera to Natalie Imbruglia.
The script cleaves close to the movie’s WASP-y, waspish script, the cast look hot, and the songs have an Edinburgh audience swaying along: essentially this is a precision-tooled, ticket-shifting nostalgia fest.
If you loved the film, and like seeing muscled men performing NSYNC hits, you will love the musical.
The script cleaves close to the movie’s WASP-y, waspish script, the cast look hot, and the songs have an Edinburgh audience swaying along (Dominic Anderson and Sophie Isaacs, above)
Not everything has aged well, however: the many jokey uses of ‘fag’, ‘queer’ and ‘lesbian’ as insults could easily be cut. And the cast, strutting up and down a catwalk stage, can be stiff rather than sexy; Rebecca Gilhooley has a hard time living up to the nasty role played by Sarah Michelle Gellar.
But there is real joy in the way the tracks are wittily woven into the narrative; the moment of recognition is often laugh-out-loud funny. This is at its best when it is camp and knowing, and could take itself a little less seriously.
Barber Shop Chronicles Roundhouse, London
Until August 24; touring from September 26, 1hr 45mins
Rating: 
Having toured internationally since 2017, there’s something celebratory about Inua Ellams’s play arriving at the Roundhouse. Cast and audience alike thrum with energy, as the action hops between barber shops in London and cities across Africa over the course of one day.
While a returning narrative concentrates on themes of fatherhood, male friendship, and the need for role models, most scenes form skipping vignettes of the varied conversations black African men of all ages have in these intimate spaces.
Ellams goes macro and micro: men debate how to discipline children, and fret over a single ingrowing hair. The legacies of Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe are chewed over, and tales of success with women are spun.
A football game unites them, and an inability to ask for help divides.
Inua Ellams goes macro and micro: men debate how to discipline children, and fret over a single ingrowing hair (Tom Moutchi and Micah Balfour, above)
These are not voices we hear often in British theatre – and Ellams brings them to life with great warmth and vitality (even if the acoustics here aren’t great).
Between scenes, hip-hop tunes electrify the cast, while an illuminated globe and shop signs signal we’re moving to Lagos, or Harare.
Bijan Sheibani directs with fizzing humour, and the ensemble cast is joyful, although special mention must go to the outrageously funny Demmy Ladipo. A bright new talent, in a well-established hit.
barbershopchronicles.co.uk