EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
The Magician’s Elephant
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon
FOR their first live main house Stratford theatre production in 18 months and with Christmas coming up, the RSC needed another Matilda-type smash hit.
To decide on a stage adaptation of US prize-winning children’s author, Kate DiCamillo’s fable about a boy’s search for a lost sister aided by an elephant, already earmarked for a Netflix animated film, must have seemed a cert.
Oddly, for a tale based on magic, that is what this show lacks.
Family issues and dragon-fuelled history amount to a vacuous spectacle that ill-fits the theatre, muses SIMON PARSONS
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
GORDON PARSONS salutes the apt return of Brecht’s vaudevillian cartoon drama that retains the vitality of the boxing or the circus ring
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship



