Animal Farm Dir. Robert Icke - Tour / Transfer rumour

[andrew]

Yeah that's the first time prior to the West End has appeared although it presumably was on the cards given the names involved.

I have had the fortune now of seeing this on it's last night at the Birmingham Rep, which seemed about 80% full. The apathy of this city towards decent theatre is a subject for another thread, the audience was quite heavily older couples, certainly almost all adults, with a handful of teenagers and the odd primary school child floating around.

As you can tell from the pictures, Christie and Icke have gone for a fairly bleak and industrial set, which whilst not very full of bells and whistles feels like it's constantly moving and provides a lot of pace to the 90 minute play. It's sad to say but I feel like I'm developing a bit of puppet fatigue, I think a few years ago I'd have been raving about the excellent puppetry but there's been quite a lot of it peppering UK theatre for the last decade so it ends up feeling very competent, if not awe-inspiring. They're well designed, at times cute and at times scary. Importantly they hold your attention throughout a play which has only a few minutes of human acting on stage, and they on the whole passed the test of allowing you to forget the presence of the puppeteers. One thing Icke talked about in the programme (free and digital) was that he was excited to use different scales as a feature of having a puppet-based cast, and he does it a few times in a way very reminiscent of Groundhog Day, if anyone remembers the car chase sequence. I found this quite effective, but my partner found that the tiny puppets combined with the large humans controlling them destroyed the magic a bit. Design wise I actually felt the least amount of Bunny Christie I've felt in recent years, where are the neon lights and light boxes? One design feature I loved was a large surtitle-esque text display above the stage, which along with helping us see how much time has passed between scenes would stop the action on stage to dourly memorialise the death of any of the characters in a very modern-Communist way. And whilst Icke has not used one of his classic revolves, he does make the cast revolve themselves at a couple of points, he simply cannot resist.

It's a fairly straightforward adaptation of the novel, there are changes that have been made for the stage, but as far as I could remember the plot is carried out much as it is in the book. Music is used to great effect, both original scoring, the animals singing and some choice pieces of Classical British orchestral stuff. It's mildly funny, probably at the right tone for the subject matter. Is it a children's play though? I would say absolutely not. Icke talks about how he tries to make everything he does accessible for younger audiences, but it seems he's referring to middle-teenagers. Sitting behind me (and talking quite a lot, it's hard to blame him) was a boy of around 6 or 7, he had no idea what the point of all this was and I think the enormous death toll of the main characters and bleak outlook of the play was tonally completely age inappropriate. It's absolutely fine for the type of age group that would have been reading Animal Farm anyway (in fact reckon I would have loved to see this at that secondary school age) but I get the feeling the recommended 11+ bracket I saw advertised was not stressed enough, do not take your children to this.

One thing I'm still wrapping my head around is that the entire animal cast is pre-recorded. This isn't advertised as far as I could tell, it wasn't until I heard Kevin Harvey's unmistakable voice that I started to wonder if the voice cast were actually there. You can see the puppeteers not mouthing anything, but I had assumed perhaps they were taking turns off stage to speak into microphones like it was a design choice to not see the humans voicing their dialogue. Later on I found the likes of Juliet Stephenson listed in the voice cast list (no idea which animal she was to be honest) and Robert Glenister. Whilst I'm pleased to have such talent behind these characters, you could tell at a couple of points that the puppeteers weren't quite sure when their line of dialogue was starting and struggling to time their movements. The puppeteers did make the animal noises (breathing, grunting, squealing, barking etc), but I have to ask why they couldn't have just voiced the characters? I don't know how I feel about recordings of London actors being paraded around the regions like this. It doesn't seem necessary and I'm not sure I like the vibe of it, although I struggle to articulate exactly why it gets my hackles up.

All the pieces of this are good and it works very well for what it is. I think I was a bit misled by Robert Icke's ownership of it, and expected something along the lines of his other adaptations which tend to blow open the usual interpretations and do really interesting things you wouldn't expect with classic pieces of literature and theatre. This does not occur with Animal Farm. It feels more like a pet project where the creators fancied to do something a bit fun and play around with puppets. What they've created is a very effective, and eminently tourable production of a classic that is entertaining and thrilling and captures the spirit of the novel as best I can remember it. It's a high quality bit of theatre, but I missed the frisson of seeing something new and daring that I thought I might have got. If I had arrived thinking this was a locally driven production, I would have been very impressed, so it's me that's at fault for expecting too much. Overall it scores 4 stars from me, and I look forward to hearing others thoughts as it makes it's way towards "London's Glitzy West End"...

[theatreskimmer]

I love this play. It’ll be so interesting to see it, especially given recent times…

[BurlyBeaR]

Feb 6, 2022 13:47:07 GMT andrew said:

Yeah that's the first time prior to the West End has appeared although it presumably was on the cards given the names involved.

Really good review andrew. Thankyou. I’ve booked for this but share your thoughts about puppet fatigue.

[firstwetakemanhattan]

Saw it in Norwich last night and echo much of what Andrew has said, really enjoed it and thought the puppets were fantastic, Napolean was a stand out for me, quite amusing and funny at times and overall very well done. Its a bit odd that the voices are all pre recorded and at times there was just the slightest pause and timing issues in terms of movements etc in synch with the voice but hardly notcieable. The animals singing parts were nicely done and very atmospheric. Didnt like the bits where they used the small models to emphasise what was happening, Ive seen it done before a time or time in various shows and never really liked it, ie a small model car is chasing an animal whilst actors hold up small models fences and houses and stuff. Another thing I will add, again as Andrew noted, is that there really doesnt seem that much aimed at children, aside from obviously the puppet element, which of course is the main element, but its very much a play for an older bracket than a lot of the children I saw about the theatre that were indeed quite young and I did wonder if they embraceed this, other than the puppetry. But yeah, all in all a pretty entertaining 90 minutes of theatre.

[BurlyBeaR]

Cancelled at the Lowry Tues, Wed and tonight so I’m not seeing it after all! They’re hoping to get it back on tomorrow but they said that yesterday. 

[david]

Having seen this tonight at the Liverpool Playhouse, I agree with your thoughts about this show andrew . I thought Robert Icke had done a great job in adapting Orwell's classic novel for the stage and thoroughly enjoyed the show. Bunny Christie's bleak set worked well alongside some good lighting and the use of music, particularly in the chase and battle scenes. For me the stars of the show were the puppets. Designed by Toby Olie, these were absolutely fantastic to watch as the cast brought them to life. Being sat in the front row allowed me to fully take in the detail that has been put into their design and construction. Whilst the larger puppets looked great on stage, the use of the smaller ones I felt was less effective when used at the back of the stage as they got lost within the stage amongst the cast moving then around on sticks.

The use of the display at the top of the stage was a very useful addition to the set in my opinion. It helped set the location and timings of the different scenes along with providing details about which animals died during the play.

It took a few minutes as the play started to get used to the pre-recorded voices for the animals. It did feel strange seeing it done this way rather than have the on-stage cast say the lines themselves as has been the case when puppets have been used in other productions. 'm sure there were some moments when the puppets's mouth movments didn't align correctly with the pre-recorded lines. Whilst I didn't mind the use of the pre-recorded stuff, I would of preferred the actual cast members to say the lines. I just wished there had been a programme or a cast list available as it really was niggling to me all show about some of the actors who voiced the animals. 

Overall, I'd say that as a whole, this production works well and was well received by tonight's audience. It's certainly something different to watch and not having read the book for nearly 30 years, it was easy to follow and kept me thoroughly entertained for the 90 minutes which flew by.

Rating - 4 stars.

[Jon]

The run in Richmond is almost sold out, I wonder if the fact it's running near the exams period has caused that or if it's the perfect play for the Richmond audience.

I think a West End run is likely although where I do not know.

[Mark]

I caught the matinee in Bromley and whilst I liked it very much, I didn’t love it. The puppets were good for the most part but at times difficult to determine which animal was “talking” as the mouth movements didn’t coincide very well. The dialogue was also a bit quiet at times. A funny moment towards the end when the calf’s lower leg fell off.

As for what this story has to say, it’s certainly very relevant to our times even now. It was one of my lockdown reads and I found this a very good adaptation.

I also loved the “ticker” with the locations and death knells. Dark humour indeed.

As for a West End run, I’m not sure. Aside from school groups there was very little attendance from what I’d call a regular audience. Perhaps this would be better on the touring circuit so a maximum number of school groups can attend (those in today certainly seemed to enjoy). If it does do a West End run they’d be wise to add additional matinees, and maybe even some morning shows to get the school groups in.

[nottobe]

Reading Robert Icke's biography for Player Kings it says this is 'slated for a London transfer'. I would imagine it could be this year but didn't see the tour so don't know where would be the best fit.