“The Tempest” at Unicorn Theatre – 23/09/23

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This is the second child-friendly production of The Tempest that Eva and I have seen this year so do forgive me if I in any way repeat myself . There are similarities but today’s show certainly had a few surprises in store. I’ll explain that shortly.

First though, a fuelling up lunch at My Favourite Cafe in Essex Road after teaching English class:

And then a wander past London Bridge station where I spotted these giant mirrored umbrellas:

We got to the theatre with almost an hour to spare so we doubled back to More London for a free coffee from you-know-where and a look around these random statues. They’ve replaced the primates that were along this stretch of the Southbank last year but I’m not sure what theme they’re following. A lot of them seemed to featured a anthropomorphised rabbit woman and this one also had a polar bear:

I can’t believe it’s the first time we’ve been to the Unicorn Theatre. It was clearly well overdue a visit and the building is bigger than I expected, although the auditorium itself is fairly intimate. There is a lift to all floors, hanging-out space on the ground floor and family toilets on several levels.

So, onto the show itself. This was an abridged and modernised version of The Tempest, aimed at 6-11 year-olds and performed by a very hard-working cast of 6. With such multi-tasking going on, there had to be some severe cuts to the cast list and, as with some previous productions that we’ve seen, the assorted extra nobles and court folk were stripped out to focus on Alonsa (a female version of Alonso), Ferdinand, Stephano and Trinculo. That didn’t seem to affect many of the main plot points though, and the audience-favourite scenes of foot-kissing and Trinculo hiding under Caliban remained intact. There were also some bits retained in this production that I’ve seen cut out of others – like the bit about Ariel being trapped in a tree and the three spirits that come to bless the union of Miranda and Ferndinand, channelling Destiny’s Child as they did so.

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Destiny’s Child, you say? Why yes, I did mention this was a modernised version, didn’t I? Along with the three feisty goddesses, there were references to Amazon, Apple, Prime, Deliveroo and that Shakespeare staple – Rick Astley. It was one of the ways in which the production was appealing to the Gen Alpha audience but without throwing out the original text entirely. There were also moments of audience participation – particularly at the beginning when Caliban and Ariel addressed us directly and got us to sing the “call of the island” along with them. There were songs scattered throughout the show, which were additions to the text in modern language rather than being taken from the text itself. I think this was to break up the dialogue a bit and help the younger ones in the audience to follow what’s going on. It actually flowed well and the modern references and words didn’t seem at odds with the purer Shakespearean bits. Eva is bit of a Shakespeare buff but not a purist because she laughed harder than anyone at the Rickrolling.

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There were some really nice touches in the production design and characterisation. Miranda (Daisy Prosper) wears mismatched shoes because of course she is clothed with whatever washes up on the island. She and Ferdinand (Finlay MacGuigan) both played their characters very young and naive, which works really well as Miranda is meant to be a teenager I think – and a very sheltered one at that. Daisy Prosper’s wide-eyed amazement at the new faces around her and her sweet, pure singing voice suited this version of the character perfectly. Finlay MacGuigan also plays Trinculo and there is some superb physical comedy between him and Caliban (Ashley D Gayle). Both are impressively athletic and Caliban also pulls off some great dance moves in his signature song.

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Caliban and Ariel (Juliet Agnes) act almost as narrators for the whole thing and Ariel especially ties the show together by appearing at opportune moments and reminding the audience that she is pulling all the strings. One of the things I like most was the light tubes around both servants, showing how Prospero (Mark Theodore) kept them enchained. It was a very strong visual metaphor for their imprisonment and turned red when Prospero chose to inflict pain on them. It showed the cruelty of Prospero’s character but it was balanced with an emphasis on his backstory and how much he suffered at the hands of Antonio (Ashley D Gayle again) and Alonsa (Alice Keedwell). It is a difficult balance to pull off and make Prospero even mildly sympathetic but it was well done here. Alonsa was also well played, leaning into the madness of losing a child but not losing him while being taunted by those Deliveroo spirits and their phoney burgers.

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Another element I liked was the way the tempest itself was created at the start of the show, with a giant billowing white curtain being made to dance by Ariel and Prospero. It’s hard to recreate a storm on stage but this was very atmospheric and when the curtain came down, it revealed a whole new part of the stage.

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So, there was a lot packed into the 75 minutes – bite-size chunks of Shakespearean farce, audience interaction, songs, dances and moments of sheer madness. It obviously isn’t Eva’s first Shakespeare experience but I think it would have been a great introduction for the younger ones in the audience. The songs were beautifully sung – especially when Ariel was involved – and moved the narrative along from one bit to the other. It felt like the set up of the story took longer than the mid section or the resolution but that’s to be expected in an abridged version.

We left the theatre and tried to get the 47 bus back to Liverpool Street but it was perpetually 3 minutes away so we eventually gave up and started walking, cutting through Potter’s Field park on the way.

Eva wanted a snack but that idea mutated to fries when she saw a hipster burger van by the Scoop. And mutated yet further when I pointed out that there was a Five Guys just up the steps from there. There were a lot of people looking at Tower Bridge but I didn’t see it open, just a lot of people held either side of the gap and then released again. The backlog of traffic might explain why the 47 never arrived though. If I did miss some major event at Tower Bridge despite being there, then do let me know.

And if you know why a rabbit is holding up a rhino, feeding spaghetti to a giraffe or sitting on a tortoise then do let me know about that too….

“The Tempest” is on until 15th Oct at the Unicorn Theatre. For tickets and more info, click here.

Disclaimer: I received free tickets in exchange for a review. All opinions remain honest and my own. All production photos were nicked from the Unicorn Theatre website so they retain copyright and hopefully won’t make me give them back….