Posted by Geraint_Lewis on January 19, 2012 at 02:06:42 user Geraint_Lewis.
In Reply to: Re: A not so good review of the musical posted by Alan Hakim on January 18, 2012 at 06:12:10:
Many thanks, Alan, for the kind words. It was great to see you there too!
I certainly agree with you about the need for imagination. This is surely one of the main elements of SA, as AR himself said:
“And I think I can put my finger on the thing in (Swallows and Amazons) which gave me so much pleasure. It was just this, the way in which the children in it have no firm dividing line between
make-believe and reality, but slip in and out of one and the other again and again and backwards and forwards, exactly as I had done when I was a child and, as I rather fancy, we all of us do in grown-up life.”
The creative team behind the musical focussed on this element of the book, and I reckon they have done an excellent job. Surely any live theatre requires an imaginative response from the audience? In this case it's impossible to put a real lake "as big as an inland sea" on stage, so they were wise not to try. Much better, I think, to invite the audience into the children's minds in the way they do.
As you say, the one negative review I've seen probably says more about the reviewer's mindset than anything else.
Thank you (and Roger) for the kind words about the Arthur Ransome Trust display.