The Hobbit

The Apollo Oxford to Nov 30th 2002

The years change. The seasons pass. The blossoms of spring fall, and the bare branches of winter become visible. Times change, but one thing is sure: if you write a play based on J.R.R. Tolkien's cheerful dwarves and bumbling hobbits, then you are going to make a killing. The Apollo was as full as I have ever seen it: even if all the tickets were sold at
child-prices, then Vanessa Ford Productions, the company bringing us this entertainment, are still going to be laughing, in ridiculous mock-rustic fashion, all the way to the bank.

So, when you have a surefire hit, does it actually matter what the play is like? Of course it does, and especially with Tolkien: the stakes have been raised so high since the first installment of Peter Jackson's film of "The Lord Of The Rings". I imagine a suggestive production of "The Hobbit", where dragons were hinted at from off-stage, would have caused riots, and three thousand eight-to-twelve year olds, crazed on Maltesers, would have run the company out of town. Thankfully for the actors, no one attempts such a travesty: we get, mostly, what Tolkien wrote, scene for scene, and with added dancing.

The variety and extent of these scenes is impressive. For those of you whose children are too young to read or too old to care, here is some background. "The Hobbit" is the story of a quest made by a bunch of dwarves, from The Shire, a country of dumpy nicotine addicts called hobbits, to the middle of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, in order to regain their ancestral halls from the dragon who is occupying them. Over the course of this journey, the dwarves, and Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit (well played by James Bradshaw) travel through numerous locations. They meet elves and trolls, giant spiders and goblins, and travel, as far as I can judge from the map helpfully printed at the back of the programme, somewhere in the region of 170 miles (a long way, if you are short and you smoke).

The dangers of compacting all this onto a single stage are many, and the direction cannot be faulted here. The set consists of two rotating staircases, which are pushed into several combinations as the journey progresses, and which do a great job of suggesting the changes in location. The lighting is good, and the costumes are impressive. Most impressive are the actors: a cast of thirteen takes on about fifty parts. As well as James Bradshaw, Michael Jenn as Gandalf the wizard and Mark Wells as Gollum the troglodyte are particularly good.

You have to remember that this is Tolkien as pantomime: there are some interpolated dances and staged fight scenes that had me mainlining my sherbert dip in order to keep awake and sane. However, this is a production which aims very clearly and successfully at a particular audience (young, mostly male schoolchildren, and their harrassed teachers or parents). If this is you, then enjoy it.

James Womack