Musicals Reviews: Matilda & Camelot

Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical Jr.

Accompanying book by Dennis Kelly, music and lyrics by Tim Minchin

Matilda the Musical was a runaway hit when it opened in 2010 and has since won seven Olivier awards, so the Broadway Junior version for performance in school and youth group settings has been eagerly awaited, and is now available through MTI. With a book by Dennis Kelly and music and lyrics by Tim Minchin, the show maintains all the glorious irreverence of Roald Dahl's original story and would be enormous fun for young people to perform.

A licence and show kit for Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical Jr. costs £495 and is only available to be performed in UK venues with a capacity of under 400. It can only be performed with students under 18, and an additional royalty fee applies for youth groups, amateur societies, and theatre schools (but not for schools following the national curriculum and performing on school premises). Applying for a licence and show kit buys you 30 student libretto/vocal books, one piano/vocal score, and a director's guide. Performance and accompaniment tracks, choreography videos and other additional content are available as downloadable resources, but there are no band parts available for the show.

The student libretto books are firmly directed at young people: they open with explanations of upstage, downstage, stage right and stage left; a walk-through of what to expect from a rehearsal process, and tips on how to mark up a script with highlighting, notes about your blocking, performance style and choreography. It is an odd and slightly frustrating quirk of the Broadway Junior range that, despite this show being available only for performance in the UK, all of these introductory notes, and the script, are written in American English. It could also be argued that these notes are of relatively little value since any teacher directing the show would naturally cover all this ground with their cast – however, it does no harm for it to be written out as it is in the front of their scripts.

The show itself is a blast: Kelly and Minchin have done a fantastic job of capturing Roald Dahl's style, and all the characters are larger than life and exactly the sort of roles that young people love to play. It's also genuinely funny for an adult audience. ‘Russians are nocturnal; I saw it on a program [sic] last night’, says Mrs Wormwood, ‘That was a program about badgers,’ replies Matilda, ever deadpan. Meanwhile there is the appropriate compliment of kids' humour (burps feature heavily at one point), and the unashamed cruelty and violence that Dahl so astutely identified as titillating young minds.

The music is catchy and, as proven by countless West End and Broadway casts, very suitable for young voices to perform, but also challenging, with off beat rhythms (‘Naughty’) and tongue-twisting internal rhymes (‘Quiet’) – there are big ensemble numbers, and solos, so opportunities for every student to shine.

Music Theatre International (MTI) licenses the show and its accompanying show kit at £495.

www.mtishows.com

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Camelot: A Pantomime

by Mark and Lisa Hilton

Meanwhile, Edgy Productions have brought out a new pantomime for school performances: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Camelot: A Pantomime, written by Mark and Lisa Hilton and available to perform at a rather lower licence fee of £36 if not charging admission, or £42 if selling tickets. This fun new show hits all the expected panto moments while telling a different story to the usual Aladdins and Cinderellas.

The young Arthur pulls the sword out of the stone, much to his surprise, and heads to Camelot to take up his throne, only to find that his elder sister Morgana is (quite reasonably, as the eldest child) trying to usurp him and marry the treacherous Mordred in order to become queen. Some of this may seem familiar, but Arthur's panto-dame foster mother (just called ‘Mum’) is a jolly addition, as is ‘Gobby’, waitress at the Good Knight Inn, and the gaggle of actors disappointed to be playing trees (again). The show features all the favourite panto tropes (a spooky wood where the monsters turn out to be more afraid of the dame than vice-versa, ‘it's behind you!’ and lots of booing for the baddie, Morgana) – and there is also a good repeating gag in which a couple of furniture delivery men keep trying to deliver a round table and are sent away because they're too early.

As in other Edgy Productions, there's quite a lot of text – some wordy lines and plenty to learn for some characters, however a confident group could definitely pull it off to the great enjoyment of themselves and the adults in the audience. There are helpful tips for teachers in the book, including ideas for staging, costume, audience seating, and for increasing or reducing the cast size. In this latter case, the writers are refreshingly un-precious about new lines being written in the style of the scene in order to involve more performers. They are also directly contactable by email for further tips.

The songs in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Camelot are as varied in style and engaging to sing as in other Edgy Productions shows. Performers and audiences will love the homage to Britney Spears' Toxic, to YMCA and to The Addams Family Theme, as well as to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Kids will enjoy singing all the numbers, but perhaps in particular ‘Monster Munchies' in which they can legitimately shout a lot of the lines rather than singing them! Guinevere's solo ‘Rescue Me’ mostly covers little more than a third in range, which is a shame, but comes to life more in the chorus, however ‘Morgana the Queen’ is a winner. Opening with an ‘80s power ballad feel which drops into a rock ‘n’ roll classic, it would be enormous fun for a young actor to perform and has the added bonus of some healthy feminist sentiment!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Camelot is published by Edgy Productions. It is available to licence for £36 if not charging admission, or £42 if selling tickets.

www.edgyproductions.com