Malory Towers
Based on the novels by Enid Blyton
Adapted and directed by EmmaRice
Original music by Ian Ross, lyrics by Emma Rice
Set and costume design by Lez Brotherston
A Wise Children Production,
co-produced with York Theatre Royal & Bristol Old Vic
On tour, Northcott Theatre, Exeter
Friday 29th September 2019, 19.30
CAST
Rebecca Collingwood – Gwendoline Lacey
Mirabelle Gremaud – Irene Dupont, harp
Vinnie Heaven – Bill Robinson, guitar, drums
Stephanie Hockley- pianist on tour, bass
Izuka Hoyle – Darrell Rivers
Reneé Lamb – Alicia Johns
Francesca Mills – Sally Hope
Rose Shaloo – Mary Lou Atkinson
Enid Blyton. It’s been in the news that in 2016 the Royal Mint declined the proposal for a Blyton commemorative 50p. My first thought was, ‘No, no, it should be a commemorative half a crown!’ But they declared ‘she had been a racist, sexist, homophobe and not well-regarded as a writer.’ As the authors who flew to her defence pointed out, Blyton encouraged millions of kids worldwide to read. I can still remember my introduction to The Island of Adventure. I was eight and Miss Barker, the youngest teacher, read it aloud to us when we did craft. I couldn’t wait to hear the next chapter. Blyton had that ability. The “of her time” defence gets definitely wobbly over the golliwogs in her young children’s stories, but in the 40s and 50s the demonized “shifty foreign looking spies” who were after Uncle Quentin’s military secrets would have been German in the 40s, Russian in the 50s and that was standard for the time. Ask James Bond. Gypsies appear quite often, but she lived in Dorset, and in the 50s there were a lot of horse drawn caravans about on Dorset roads. She also created George in The Famous Five surely a trans character: George always wanted to be a boy, and as for sexism, the same series gently mocked Anne’s girly domesticity. What is the evidence of homophobia? I can’t think homosexuality was ever mentioned, unless you think she was adding a second meaning to The Gay Story Book and The Book of Queer Stories. That is simply language change. Blyton also had an underlying sly sense of humour. In the -of Adventure series we accept that the male detective-sergeant has started coming on holiday with them and their apparently single mother and seemed to be in the same cabin or room. That was pretty scandalous when she wrote it. Whatever, as a writer, she is highly regarded by me.
(See also “The Famous Five” by Paul F. Newman, a very funny analysis of the series)
I read Malory Towers as a child. I read everything I could find by Enid Blyton. When I’d read all the Secret Seven, Famous Five, The Mystery of … series and the … of Adventure series, I read my sister’s Malory Towers and St. Clare’s books. There were six books in the Malory Towers series, dating from 1946 to 1951, very much Blyton’s best era.
My copies …
We often thought about adapting Enid Blyton for the stage, and even sought permission years ago to adapt a particular Famous Five novel. The Estate seemed up for it too in the correspondence. The trouble is Timmy The Dog, of course. Real dog or pantomime character in a dog suit? Adults playing kids is always difficult, but it tends to work better with all girls in a story (no stubble, hairy legs and hairy arms, or deep dropped voices to contend with) as was shown by the massive success of Daisy Pulls It Off which we saw in two different productions. However, caution is needed on the St Trinian’s sixth former effect, but that never reduces audience numbers. Both Malory Towers and Daisy Pulls It Off feature a cliff scene, but Malory Towers was always on a cliff top, so I’d say that was the original source of the cliff scene in Daisy Pulls It Off.
We are major Emma Rice fans too. Unwilling to face Bristol traffic jams (I spent weeks doing so when we used to film there), we waited until the tour got to Exeter.
The train to Malory Towers: L to R … Mary Lou (Rose Shaloo), Irene (Mirabelle Gremaud), Gwendoline (Rebecca Collingwood), Sally (Francesca Mills), Alicia (Renée Lamb), Darrell (Izuka Hoyle)
Emma Rice’s adaptation draws strongly on First Term at Malory Towers for the opening scenes, and for the Gwendoline bullying Mary Lou theme. Then the cliff top rescue (incredibly ambitious staging which works) is from The Second Form at Malory Towers. The character of Wilhelmina who prefers to be called “Bill” comes from Third Year At Malory Towers. The idea of a play within a play comes from In The Fifth at Malory Towers. In that the production is a pantomime Cinderella with the battle over casting Cinderella, which eventually goes to Mary Lou. Instead, we got an Emma Rice connection because instead they’re doing a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the play within a play, and that play was Emma Rice’s Globe Theatre triumph (for us at least). So Emma Rice certainly did her homework. I just used the synopses on The Enid Blyton Society’s excellent website.
From The Enid Blyton Society website
Off to the cliffs for the rescue
It’s very easy to send Blyton up, as was done in the Comic Strip’s Five Go Mad in Dorset and its less successful sequels. That fits with the men playing boys as a joke. I used to read The Famous Five series aloud to kids and grandkids, and I sent up Julian’s cut-glass advanced RP, Annes little girlie voice, George as butch and Dick as nice but dim. Emma Rice doesn’t do that, and largely plays it straight. She has Darrell Rivers with natural slight Irish, Mary Lou with the same weedy voice she had in the modern bookends to the story. Girls do say some jolly hockey sticks lines in RP, but it’s not a send up. Emma Rice takes the moral of the original tales around the character of Gwendoline (bullying is bad, people who appear bad might just be concealing a problem) and plays that also for the many children in the audience. Emma Rice’s introduction in the programme makes it clear that it is an affectionate tribute to those all-girl schools, not a send up.
I flicked through my copy of First Term at Malory Towers. The character descriptions fit.
Miss Potts looked at Gwendoline. She had already sized her up and knew her to be a spoilt, only child, selfish and difficult to handle at first.
She looked at quiet little Sally Hope. Funny little girl with her tight plaits and prim closed-up face. No mother had come to see her off. Did Sally care?
It was quite easy to read Darrell. She never hid anything, and she said what she thought, though not so bluntly as Alicia did.
There are several Blyton lines of dialogue which (I think) got through intact to the play. Alicia on the train:
Hello, I’m in your form. Do you want to get a corner seat? If so, you’d better come now …
The play starts with a modern secondary school with grey skirts and blue sweaters, and signs on doors, Head Teacher and Welfare Assistant. Malory Towers certainly would have had a Headmistress not a Head Teacher, and mistresses not ‘teachers.’ As for welfare assistants, if you had a problem in those days, the advice was to run it under a cold tap. No welfare assistants.
Rose Shaloo as Mary Lou, Francesca Mills as Sally Hope
The speccy, weedy Mary Lou is made fun of for reading First Term at Malory Towers, so wishes she were there at the fictional school, and off we go back in time with the cast re-emerging in maroon gymslips. They bookend it – after the play within a play where they do a Titania / Oberon scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mary Lou as Titania is sent to sleep by Puck, and wakes back in the modern school. We thought that particular Titania reference rather too subtle for the many children in the audience. Enid Blyton’s original idea of Cinderella was better.
Francesca Mills as Sally Hope, Izuka Hoyle as Darrell Rivers
The casting was innovative. Francesca Mills as Sally Hope is a reduced height actor who stole the show in The Globe’s Two Gentlemen of Verona. On the way back we both thought that her Sally character and the Darrell character lent themselves beautifully to the Helena – Hermia row (as they do A Midsummer Night’s Dream), but I fear that would have been far too non-PC given her height and Shakespeare’s lines. She makes a great producer / director instead.
L to R: Francesca Mills as Sally Hope, Renée Lamb as Alicia, Vinnie Heaven as Wilhelmina “Bill’ Robinson, Izuka Hoyle as Darrell
Then Vinnie Heaven, playing Wilhelmina ‘Bill’ Robinson is a trans actor, a wonderful idea for a Blyton tomboy. Izuka Hoyle plays the central character, Darrell Rivers. Enid Blyton’s husband was the surgeon, Darrell Waters, and the name Darrell Rivers comes from the series as Enid’s little in-joke..
The other issue for adults playing children is how to do adults in contrast. Here it’s a projected shadow with Sheila Hancock’s recorded voice. Projection creates the set changes, rain, the teacher, the horse Thunder, diving girls. The projection I loved was when Darrel is sent to Coventry, and Mary Lou wants to speak to her by writing on a projected blackboard in squeaky chalk, then rubbing it off to write the next sentence.
The set is on three or four levels. The dormitory is flat on the auditorium floor here, then there’s the main stage for the classroom and school, and they use the top for the cliff drop and another platform for the cliff top. The way the set and projection work together is first rate. There are some fantastic theatrical moments.
The set: Exeter. Dormitory on the flat in the foreground.
Set as the dorm. End of the interval.
It is a musical, though not heavily so, relying on a 1950s feel, and the song Mr Sandman comes in several times. As well as the pianist, who also adds bass guitar, Vinnie Heaven does drums and guitar, and Mirabelle Gremaud as Irene DuPont, plays harp. It does leave them overall a touch light instrumentally, usually just one playing, sometimes two, never more, and while they had tiny head mics on the cast I couldn’t hear they were boosting the vocals much if at all. It sounded like natural sound where we were at the front. While you could hear the vocals, the piano, bass guitar and drums were dominating the balance – not too loud at all but I thought the balance could be improved.
In the interval, the cast invited us all into the bar and sang A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening. I think we all went. A fun crowd pleaser. The best musical piece was Michelle Gremaud accompanying herself on harp (was it Hush Now Sally?). Full marks for listing all the songs in full with their composers. Thunder was memorable and an original, and there are classics of the era like Sing Sing Sing, Mr Sandman, Mon manege a moi, Daddy’s Little Girl, I Can Dream, Can’t I? The Malory Towers Hymn captured the mood of school songs of the era perfectly. Ours started We honour them that laboured, to make the school’s fair name. That shaped its proud tradition and sought its lasting fame …
If anything, the intrinsic quality of the 50s songs is the only minus. For me, the originals were actually better. I would have gone for 5 stars, but the day afterwards we saw The Man in The White Suit with an even more fluid set and staging, a similar semi-musical setting and better songs. So that got the five.
Four star ****
PROGRAMME
Fabulous. Like a 1950s school exercise book with reports on the cast and creatives. Five star programme.
THEATRE
A great theatre on the university’s stunning tree-filled campus. We booked the pre-show three course dinner. Superb quality and very friendly and prompt service. 5 stars.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
That’s what you expect from Emma Rice – the full range of ratings from 2 star to 5 star.
5 star
Arif Akbar, The Guardian *****
Sian David, Bristol Post *****
4 star
Sam Marlowe, The Times ****
Daisy Bowie-Sell, What’s On Stage ****
3 star
Natasha Tripney, The Stage ***
Tim Wright, Broadway World ***
2 star
Domenic Cavendish, Telegraph **
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
EMMA RICE
Romantics Anonymous, Wanamaker Playhouse 2017
Tristan & Yseult, Kneehigh, Globe 2017
Twelfth Night, Globe 2017
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Globe 2016
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, by Daniel Jamieson, Kneehigh / Bristol Old Vic
FRANCESCA MILLS
The Two Noble Kinsmen, Globe 2018
REBECCA COLLINGWOOD
Much Ado About Nothing, RSC at Chichester 2016 (Hero)
Love’s Labour’s Lost, RSC at Chichester 2016 (Katharine)