In this new musical, spawned by the children’s book from Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, we are led into an enchanting woodland world by Jay, who is so overcome by nerves on her first day at school that she forgets her name and is on a mission to find it.
Some of the poetry of the book is incorporated into Matt Borgatti’s charming script but it is Mary Erskine and Will Dollard’s music that leads the drama. The actors are musicians, too, and the drums, saxophone, guitar, bass and banjo become characters in their own right. In Andy Barry’s production, the instruments are on stage before the actors enter and they embody the sights and sounds of the natural world: the bass becomes a swaying tree in one moment and the drum kit resembles a woodpecker’s unruly racket.
As something of a latter-day Alice, Jay (Miriam Nyarko) is taken into this wonderland by a cockney fox (Alex Wingfield) who resembles one of Fagin’s Victorian hustlers in Oliver Twist and promptly pinches Jay’s phone. Then comes a courteous hare (Toby De Salis), a preening jackdaw (Paula James) and best of all, the rocking woodpecker (Lucy Yates), who sports a red mohican and creates a mischievous storm of sounds on the drums. Their entries elicit an eclectic array of songs, from a cabaret number by the jackdaw to the Celtic sounds of a sea shanty by a seal. Nyarko exudes a winning innocence and has the strongest singing voice.
Sweet whimsy dominates the first half, which has a few disjointed moments, but the show gets smoother, picking up its pace. Erskine and Dollard’s tunes require sometimes awkward shifts and not every singer hits the most difficult notes but the elegance, invention and abundant sense of magic in this musical wins out.
There is beautiful puppetry designed by Amber Donovan Kahn and lovely visual abstractions in Hannah Sibai’s set including artfully fluttering ocean waves and a giant luminous globe which looks like an oversized pop-up of Morris’s illustration in the book.
The nature on our doorstep so often goes unobserved but contains wonders, Jay discovers. “What takes years to grow takes second to crush,” we are told. It is a reminder that every acorn, tree and dandelion is a world in itself and a sacred part of our own.
• At Watford Palace theatre until 8 April; then at Polka theatre, London, 13 April-7 May; and Theatre By the Lake, Keswick, 24 May-3 June.
• The introduction of this article was amended on 2 April 2023 to credit Jackie Morris as co-author of the book, in line with the information provided in the subheading and elsewhere in the text.
