Photo Simon AnnandAll aboard The Swallow! Follow Captain John and his able crew as they set sail to Wildcat Island on an exotic adventure to encounter savages, capture dastardly pirates and defeat mortal enemies. Read more …
An action-packed musical adventure for the whole family, Swallows and Amazons is a story of an idyllic era, of endless summer evenings and the beauty of youthful imagination. This delightful and imaginative production is directed by Tom Morris (War Horse), written by Helen Edmundson (National Theatre's Coram Boy), with music by Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy.
A joyous production that works on liberating the inner child.
The production is funny, fresh inventive, and at times deeply affecting.
A delight, but begins to lose its charm with repetition.
If [it] sounds old-fashioned, Tom Morris's adaptation turns out to be anything but. While mining the charm of an 80-year-old story, it takes a very modern theatrical approach.
Helen Edmundson’s book is a charming adventure complimented by Robert Innes Hopkins quirky design and if Neil Hannon’s songs sometimes sit a little awkwardly in the narrative, you will probably be too busy having fun to notice that much.
Helen Edmundson's script is canny perfection. The score by Neil Hannon (of the Divine Comedy) is beguilingly unsentimental. The cast/crew is excellent.
This whole thing struck me as an exercise in enforced jollity – which is also its fundamental flaw. The trouble with jollity is that it can never be enforced.
A show for all the family, Morris’s production is as involving as it is entertaining, drawing you into its world and making you wish you too were there on the island joining in the spirit of adventure.
Swallows and Amazons is a pleasant evening of well sculpted theatre that your Morningside granny would thoroughly approve of.
The audience are sufficiently drawn in by the visual creativity that we become willing participants in an enjoyably spontaneous and unexpectedly slapstick finale.
I was left wondering just what it was all for; if not to make us wish that we were back in 1929, when virtuous young Brits like the Walker children ruled half the earth, and all was right with the world.
Even if you don't buy into the 1929 outdoorsy adventurings that Arthur Ransome bestowed on his young characters, you surely have to salute – with cheers, and occasional squeaks of delighted surprise – the inventive cunning of Tom Morris's direction, the charm and wit of Neil Hannon's music and the deft way that Helen Edmundson has managed to keep a flavour of the pre-war original in her own script.
A brilliant, inventive, entrancing production for everyone over the age of six.
The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon discusses theatre production Swallows and Amazons
Swallows and Amazons: a musical with teeth
Swallows and Amazons sets sail for the stage
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from Tuesday January 31, 2012, until Saturday February 4, 2012. Evenings: 7pm; Matinees: Wed & Sat 2pm.. Tickets: Kids go half price! Check venue website for details.. More info: http://www.edtheatres.com/festival
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