A cynical, silly version of Tolkien's fantasy is for obsessives only
Lord of the Rings Theatre Royal, London WC2
Show me the money. This, I'm afraid, is what will be in people's minds if they venture to see Lord of the Rings on stage. Not due to the £55 ticket price, but because this production cost some £12.5m to stage, the most in the history of musical theatre. For that sort of bill, one hopes for something big, sensational and utterly dramatic.
At the start, however, Matthew Warchus's production of J R R Tolkien's postwar fantasy on the evils of absolute power comes across as sweet and charming, as it features dancing Hobbits with West Country accents. All right, the floral set wobbles a bit but it is a nice enough scene-setter. For what? For what seems like the introduction of the entire population of Middle Earth. The "fellowship of the ring", which Tolkien fans will know is the trusty band that goes off to defeat the forces of evil at Mount Doom, is a worthy but unwieldy group.
Frankly, by the time you get round to introducing Gimli the Dwarf, Aragorn, Strider and all the rest (bar Tom Bombadil, mercifully excised as he was in the film), the dramatic picture is about as baggy as the woollen all-in-ones that the hapless Hobbits are forced to wear. Indeed, the Hobbits look slightly deranged, with ill-fitting wigs and squints. In particular, Pippin (Owen Sharpe) wears a manic grin throughout the proceedings. Anyway, there they all are, talking Hobbit and Elvish nineteen to the dozen.
The trouble is that when someone starts talking Elvish on stage, I start giggling. Tolkien just about managed to keep a lid on the nonsensical aspects of his fictional world via an iron narrative drive, and the films slammed in epic shots of New Zealand when it all got too silly. But confined to the Drury Lane stage, no matter how much Gandalf (Malcolm Storry) whirls his staff, the magic of this show has zero conviction. The choreography by Peter Darling, the master behind Billy Elliot: The Musical, is perfectly decent, and the orchestration respectably bland; but there is no heart and soul to this Ring cycle, however hard Frodo Baggins (James Loye) sweats in his little jerkin. "I wonder what kind of story we have landed in," muses Samwise Gamgee (Peter Howe) at some point. A long and rather pointless one, I might have told him.
Having to run through the giant plot in just three hours means that pivotal dramatic moments such as the resurrection of Gandalf - which I remember as thrilling when I read Lord of the Rings as a child - are almost shrugged off in return for bearded people on stilts pretending to be trees, and a couple of spins from a tiresomely dynamic stage. Meanwhile, presumably to get their money's worth out of her, poor old Laura Michelle Kelly as Galadriel must keep on returning to the stage in increasingly improbable Dungeons and Dragons-esque robes, sounding like a backing singer from Clannad while making desperate hand gestures and warbling something in Elvish. Possibly along the lines of "Get me out of this ghastly corset".
And yet the show is not completely without redemption. As a metaphor for addiction, there is no fictional creation more fascinating than Gollum, the poor slimy wretch obsessed with his "Precious". Playing Gollum, Michael Therriault is irresistible as he makes his entrance, swarming down from the very top of the proscenium arch like a slimy, skeletal Spiderman. Gollum, who "continues until every movement is a weariness", wears his dependence on the Ring outwardly, writhing so much with yearning that he is almost physically split between the forces of lust and forbearance.
At the end of it all, however, this Ring is coated with a wholly cynical glitter. The show is clearly for fanatics only and, as we know from the record box office for the Peter Jackson film trilogy, there are many millions of those around the world.
So, presumably the cost is justified, no matter how dull an evening Warchus has given us. Now we must wait until the grim moment when Lord of the Rings is no doubt joined on stage by Harry Potter: The Musical.
For further info and booking details visit http://www.lotr.com
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