Emily Hill
posted 19 January 2007

The Young Vic's answer to panto outclasses other kiddies' productions. Not because of the quality of the play itself - the dialogue is largely uninspired, the story a traditional, Romanian fairytale, the jokes for the preteens being very much for the preteens, and the operatic style of singing doing nothing for the banality of some of the lines sung ('with destiny's thread we're embroidering coverlets' etc) - it beats the competition simply through the class of the production: the stage, the costumes and the orchestra. Slick, inspired and utterly engrossing, a complete fairytale world rolls out before your eyes, and the children on the front row seem transported into a foreign landscape of wonder.

Once upon a time there were three princesses with cone-like hairstyles, embroidering coverlets, thinking about destiny and wondering (in song) whom they would marry. Their father the king arrives (in boxing shorts, riding a golf cart, carrying a 'bomb' with a sparkler burning out on it) and tells them they must on no account discover their futures in the Book of Destiny, which he happens to keep in a secret room. The king leaves, the princesses take the key, uncover the Book of Destiny, and read their fates. The first two are to marry kings and to have their own kingdoms. The youngest is to marry… 'a pig!' And henceforward, the plot pretty much runs along the same lines as Beauty and the Beast segued into a quest story. The princess discovers she loves her pig, and her pig is enchanted and actually is a king, but because of her impatience to break the spell, a wicked witch who wants the pig to marry her own daughter captures him, and the princess must travel the world, until she wears out three pairs of iron shoes- proving her love for him and winning him back.

And this is where the play becomes spectacular. The music swells, the stage revolves, the actresses run about in platforms, black lace and Burberry, the costumes sparkle and shimmer, the pig wallows about in real mud in a pit on the stage, characters pop up in the audience and from small balconies, the heroine flies about with an inside-out umbrella. The princess visits the North Wind, the Moon and the Sun, a smoke machine fills the stalls with fog, the Sun flashes in gold lame hotpants and a light-beam helmet, the wicked witch snips at hog's head ornamental bushes and when the spell is finally broken a huge smoke ring claps out from the pit in the stage, billowing up and up, until it dissipates in the ceiling.

When the time comes for the cast to take bows, the audience is in hysterics, clapping and whistling so loudly it sounds like a standing ovation at a party rally. The dialogue doesn't really merit it; the singing, though clear as bell, doesn't really merit it; but the imagination of the design more than makes up for it.

Till 27 January 2007