Unfortunately I had forgotten that the story of Doctor Dolittle pokes at the cognitive dissonance of this meat-eating nation of animal lovers and had gone fully flexitarian in Mission Burrito before the show. Sorry GubGub! I had also forgotten about the many very jolly lyrics and tunes by Lesley Bricusse:
“I once bought an elephant for two pounds six.
Two pounds six!
Taught it tricks!”
And of course when the doctor realises he can learn to talk to the animals: “If people asked me, can you speak rhinoceros, I'd say, "Of courserous, can't you?"
What I hadn’t forgotten was the thrill of reading about Doctor
Dolittle setting off on his adventures to look for fascinating wildlife in the
tropics, and it was lovely how the show’s set design referred to the original
books and illustrations. I recently ordered some of the more obscure
Doctor
Dolittle
titles from the library for my son and was thrilled when the very same
copies I had read as a child were sent for collection. He remarked that the one
where the Doctor discovers a giant mud turtle who then reminisces about
biblical times for the majority of the book would have been harder to stage.
Very true – this production certainly made the most of the colour and beauty of
its animal subjects. The costumes, props and puppets were fantastic,
culminating in the arrival of the Great Pink Sea Snail. Smaller audience
members in the row behind us were in awe and whispered loudly to their parents,
“It’s ginormous! It’s beautiful!”.
Mark Williams is as lovable as ever, and the young Harry Potter fans I
was with were so excited to 'see Arthur Weasley'. He certainly did a better job
than Rex Harrison of hitting the tunes! Mollie Melia-Redgrave was rather
reminiscent of Truly Scrumptious in
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She sings
wonderfully and as romance blossomed, had some lovely duets with Patrick
Sullivan as Matthew Mugg, the Cat’s
Musical direction by Josh Sood was clearly superb. It was great to be able to see the orchestra up on platforms either side of the stage. Wind player Andy Hunter mightily impressed 11 year old flute player Emily by effortlessly switching from clarinet to bass clarinet to flute. There were lovely phrases on the cello, played by Sarah Bowler, in the ‘Impossible’ reprise on the ship.
I was sorry to discover that this beautifully designed production with such a simple and pleasant message is on its last couple of weeks. If you have fond memories of Doctor Dolittle, take family to see the show before it closes on 26th January and hopefully this wildlife-inspired fantasy will help to save real animals threatened with extinction around the world.