The Little Mermaid Review – Underwater Wonders Cast a Spell in the Air | stage

TThe Little Mermaid is big business this Christmas, with versions of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale at Hull Truck, Nottingham Playhouse and Newbury’s Watermill, all supported perhaps by the Disney blockbuster of 2023. Converter Teresa Heskins and her assistant director, Vicky Della Amedum, pitched their show as an all-ages theatrical show. We’re also introduced to each house band member located in the audience before meeting the main characters.

Rhiannon Skerritt plays the title role, here named Coralie, in a production that highlights how Andersen makes her the smallest of many creatures. The romance is not completely extinguished, but the power of sisterhood surfaces instead in this novel, which also emphasizes the suspicion and division between the people of land and water.

Early on, this leads to some upstairs-downstairs comedy as the mermaids tell tales about the world above. But Heskins muddies the waters by displaying gleeful cruelty, making the pearl-diving prince, Caspian (D’Arcy Braimoh), as guilty of exploitation as the sea witch (Harrison Sweeney). However, the relevant message about trade seems strangely forced, as does the end of the show. It is also surprising to see the damage to our oceans so unexplored for young audiences.

This was the focus of an environmental tale last Christmas at the Bristol Old Vic, which evoked the aquatic life of mermaids through the aerial skills of Holly Downie, circus impresario and performer. Downey joins the troupe here and helps choreograph circus choreography by Amedume that suits performers who have little room to maneuver inside their tailed costumes. Sweeney’s softness conveys the witch’s slippery nature in a rope routine that suggests how Coralie becomes trapped in their deal. Aerial silks blend well with Daniela Petti’s shimmering projections and the performers also use spiral-like devices in the air. Designer Laura Wellstead’s stage floor serves as the seabed and sand, and a maze-like structure is used for the rippling water surface (golden lighting by Betty) while Wellstead also provides glowing puppets of the iridescent sea creatures.

One of the challenges facing Transformers is the heroine, whom Andersen portrays as reserved and then stealing words. Heskins amends the pact with the witch so that it is Coralie’s “siren song” that is missing, not her voice. The Witch in the Dark is voiced by Inés Sampaio (also playing the narrator who fades out of sight for too long) while the aerial Sweeney remains silent, eerily underscoring the Witch’s longing to steal Chorale’s song.

When she arrives on Earth, Coralie is given mock Shakespearean language while Caspian uses extravagant colloquial dialogue – both jokes that get old very quickly. But Skerritt engagingly handles the physical comedy and delivers a message of good faith without coming off as too good.

Costume designer Liz Evans makes the band’s costumes more playful than Arun Ghosh’s lively, soulful compositions (the words are sometimes drowned out). And when band member Alexander Bean becomes the god Poseidon, he does so with a voice as deep as the ocean floor. This is a Champagne production with dark undercurrents but it is the designs that dazzle.