Theatre / jacqueline wilson
Review: Hetty Feather, Bristol Old Vic
People very rarely dress up to go to the theatre nowadays. So it’s a pleasant surprise to find nearly half the audience at the Old Vic wearing their party finest – the half that is female and aged under 10: author Jacqueline Wilson’s hardcore fanbase, who get all the more excited when they realise that their beloved novelist is actually present in person.
This is the staging of Wilson’s much-loved story of Hetty Feather (Phoebe Thomas), a Victorian child abandoned by her desperate mother to the tender mercies of the Foundling Hospital, fostered with a loving family in the country, then returned to the Hospital for her ‘education’ to which she stubbornly refuses to submit. It’s a story of female independence, Victorian poverty and the eternal quest for family love: Oliver Twist with ginger pigtails.
Bristol theatregoers should be very familiar with the work of director Sally Cookson, who honed her stripped-down and inventive style with Travelling Light before branching out into main stage shows at the Tobacco Factory Theatres and Bristol Old Vic including Treasure Island, Peter Pan and 101 Dalmatians. Basically, if you’ve taken a child to the theatre in Bristol in the past 15 years, you’ve almost certainly seen her work. Hetty Feather works to her tried and tested formula: an ensemble cast playing different roles, gender-swaps, a bare minimum of props and a glorious excess of imagination conjuring up everything from circus horses to treehouses.
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Cookson’s staging draws heavily on the circus theme that runs through the book, using aerial silks, ropes and a hoop overhead to add a whole new dimension to the stage area. The cast’s nimble aerialist techniques capture a sense of childhood freedom, whilst in a rich contrast the foundlings form up in structured geometric patterns, serried ranks turning and rote-reciting under the authoritarian regime of Matron Bottomly (Matt Costain).
The end result is a show in which the theatrical spectacle is highly rewarding, even if the plot is – to adult eyes – as thin as the gruel served in the Foundling Hospital where Hetty finds herself incarcerated.
This production may appeal more to ten-year-old girls (and their mothers, incidentally, many of whom leapt up to give a standing ovation). But it’s a good sample of Cookson’s work, and will hopefully prompt many punters to rush out and book tickets for her Christmas production of Sleeping Beauty at the Old Vic.
Hetty Feather finishes at Bristol Old Vic on Sunday, July 19. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/shows.html
Pic: Donald Cooper
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