Secret Garden Aldwych **** star rating

Review by Angela Pollard

Spring has arrived early in London blown in across the cold and frosty countryside into the Aldwych Theatre in the form of the RSC production of the musical The Secret Garden.

Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 novel is a classic. This Edwardian tale of an orphan girl, a crippled cousin, a gloomy manor and a mysterious garden has been a childrens' favourite for ninety years.

It does seem, at first, to be an unusual story to turn into a musical, but Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon have done a superb job.

The musical is much darker than the book, concentrating a lot more on the grief of Mary's Uncle Archibald for his dead wife Lily. This adds to the story and helps capture the adults' attention and upgrades it from just being a kids' show to a production the whole family, whatever age, can enjoy.

Adrian Noble's RSC production is beautiful. His almost cinematic staging sweeps you from the frightening cholera outbreak in India to dark and gloomy Misselthwaite Manor and onto the rebirth, not only of a garden, but those entwined around it. The isolation, sickness and grief of this story and how it transforms into friendship, happiness and love is splendidly told.

Anthony Ward's design makes the most of the limited space and is very creative. Using minimal props and skilful lighting, sliding screens to portray the gardens and three free-standing, turning, dark oak doors to convey the impression of a dark, unhappy, haunted manor. Gillian Lynne's choreography brings to life wonderfully the awakening of spring.

Natalie Morgan, who plays Mary, is terrific. She has energetic charm, throws a tantrum that brings the house down and her singing and overall performance is outstanding. Luke Newberry, who plays her cousin Colin, is equally as good.

Dilys Laye's performance as crabby Mrs Medlock is unforgettable as is Freddie Davies as the dour, but good hearted, old gardener Ben Weatherstaff. Craig Purnell's Dickon is delightfully funny and looks like he has been drinking to much carrot juice for his own good. His performance of 'Winter's On the Wing' is superb. As for Linzi Hateley - her Martha is lively and friendly, her performance of 'My Fine White Horse' is a delight and her 'Hold On' is strong and stirring.

Peter Polycarpou's performance as Neville Craven is sturdy, and although his duet with Philip singing 'Lily's Eyes' is superb, I still felt a bit disappointed, as I think he could have done a lot more with the role.

Meredith Braun's performance of Lily, the beautiful ghostly wife of Uncle Archibald, is wonderfully haunting and very impressive. The duets between her and Philip tear at the heartstrings. They are totally convincing as two people who truly loved one another.

Finally Philip Quast's performance as Uncle Archibald. So much praise has already been placed on his outstanding performance by the critics and, after seeing his performance, I cannot argue with any of it. We are talking about an actor who can really sing, not a singer who can act. His performance as the grieving and tormented uncle dominates the show. He portrays Archibald's emotional grief and self-imposed isolation powerfully and poignantly. His performance from 'A Girl in the Valley' to 'How Could I Ever Know' are simply exceptional. The vocal range Philip performs is impressive. By the end his performance leaves you feeling emotionally drained. No wonder some are saying this is at least an Olivier Award nomination performance.

The show as a whole is a joy and delight, and brings some much needed fresh spring air to the West End. It is well worth the ticket price and a real family show that will have a few in tears.

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The Secret Garden Aldwych Theatre London April 2001

Reviewed by Mary

A place where I can bid my heart be still and it will mind me.

A place where I can go when I am lost,

And there I'll find me.

Everyone needs a secret garden. Somewhere peaceful and quiet, somewhere safe from the madding crowd and the hardships of life. A place full of wonder, love, kindness and light.

London's West End audiences may have found theirs.

The Royal Shakespeare Company presents the musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's famous book, The Secret Garden, text and lyrics by Marsha Norman, music by Lucy Simon.

And what a garden it is.

Adrian Noble takes us from the death throes of cholera-stricken India in clever sequence of actor-powered steam trains and horse-drawn carriages, to the misty moors of England and the never-ending gloomy hallways of Misselthwaite Manor. There, Mary Lennox, orphaned at the tender age of nine and as grumpy as can be, is sent to live with her mysterious Uncle Archibald when her parents die in the Indian epidemic. She finds new friends, a new life and uncovers the secrets the house has hidden for ten years.

The roles of Mary and Colin Craven, her cousin, are shared by six children and were performed this evening by Tamsin Egerton and Eddie Brown. Miss Egerton gives us a truthful performance, not over-playing a role that could potentially run away from her, especially when one has to throw a tantrum, hurling books at one's senior cast members and shrieking the house down. With a singing voice terrifically pure and strong, she holds her own very successfully against her older and more experienced co-stars. Her harmonies with Craig Purnell (filling the role of Dickon with a joyful enthusiasm and charm) in Wick are particularly enchanting. Young Master Brown also gives us a delightfully pouting Colin and his onstage relationship with father Archie (Philip Quast) is heart-rending to say the least. Taking Quast's hand in a sleepy embrace during Race You To the Top of the Morning didn't leave a dry eye in an auditorium still recovering from Colin's touching solo, Round Shouldered Man.

Dilys Laye gives a wonderful performance as the ever-vexed Mrs Medlock, all-seeing tyrant of the household staff. A wave of a hand, a jingle of keys and the stage is a-flurry with apron clad servants clearing furniture and scurrying to set the next scene. She is counter-pointed by the marvellous Linzi Hately as Martha, Mary's Yorkshire servant and sister to Dickon. We love Martha from the second she bounces on stage, she is the very soul of warmth and friendship, taking Mary under her wing. She insists the girl goes out to play in the fresh air alone (My Fine White Horse) and coaxing her back from desperate unhappiness with a powerful and poignant Hold On. Ray C Davis, stepping in for an indisposed Freddie Davies as Ben Weatherstaff, the crusty old gardener, is pleasantly engaging, leading the gardeners ensemble through a rousing chorus of the Garden Suite.

Uncle Archie's 'evil' brother, Dr Neville Craven, is given the lurk treatment by Peter Polycarpou, who, I feel, could have revelled more in the 'wicked uncle' role. Polycarpou is a terrific performer with a strong voice, but against Quast's anguished Archie, he fades into the background, even during the ultimate musical rendering of tortured souls and lost love, Lily's Eyes.

She has her eyes, the girl has Lily's hazel eyes

Those eyes that loved my brother

Never me.

Lily, Archie's dear departed wife and the centre of his universe, is Meredith Braun, an ethereal presence in a lavender followspot, completely and totally captivating and enchanting. And from the moment she sings to us, with a voice like some incorporeal angel, we understand why Archie's pain has lasted so long. Braun and Quast are like lovers from a fairytale, fervent and desperate, breaking our hearts without sharing a single kiss.

There's a man who no one sees

There's a man who lives alone.

There's a heart that beats in silence for

The life he's never known.

Which brings me to the superlative Philip Quast. His Archie Craven is savage in his anger and pain over losing Lily, wretched in his longing to see her again. From his very first notes in A Girl In A Valley, we know we are in for something special from this man. Something that will involve considerable surreptitious sniffling and cheeks streaked with tearstains and running mascara.

Quast reels around the stage with an awkward grace, flailing cane, stooped shoulders and swirling coat, something between Quasimodo, Mr Rochester and Heathcliff, and we adore him all the more for his physical afflictions. He is fierce, fearsome in his physical and emotional demeanour, towering formidably above the servants, Neville and the children. Yet Quast's lofty stature strangely compliments the diminutive Meredith Braun, even in a romantic real/not-real waltz in the parlour before a faded portrait of Lily.

His pain obvious from the first, Quast has taken Burnett's brief description of Archie in the final chapters of the novel and made a banquet of it. Archie is closed off to his family and household, angry and silent, leaving Misselthwaite for long periods of time, returning as sombre as he left. He is indifferent to the servants, cutting and abrupt with his brother, impatient and distant with Mary.

Archie's heart is broken. There is no mending it. And Colin is a constant reminder of everything he has lost. The mixture of bittersweet joy and unendurable loneliness in his midnight story-telling visits to his crippled son is powerfully touching. In a dramatic sequence of rushing umbrellas, we are swept into the rainy streets of Paris as Archie searches for Lily, who he cannot let go. Archie tumbles to his knees, prepared to end it all when Lily appears behind him, her voice lifted in the ghostly first notes of How Could I Ever Know. And there was more than one sympathetic sigh of compassion from the audience as Archie lifted his head in agony at Lily's declaration of her love for him.

But in the midst of all this angst, we see the other side of Archie, the side that Lily fell in love with, despite his misshapen appearance. His genuine pleasure at discovering that Mary would like A Bit of Earth, a kiss bestowed gently on a sleeping son's forehead, a fearsome directive to Neville that Mary should not be sent away to school against her wishes - we see that Archie is still human, he hasn't left the world yet, he's just forgotten it, locked it up, left it to wither behind him.

Just like the garden.

Once again, Philip Quast takes on a character with seemingly one dimension and gives him layer upon layer, triumphantly enticing the audience to come with him on the painful journey. Vocally Quast is at his finest, reaching into our hearts with a deluge of emotions in Lily's Eyes, soaring to flawless falsetto heights in Race You To the Top of the Morning and A Bit of Earth.

He is truly breathtaking.

Anthony Ward's set design is gorgeous and effective, whirling doors creating the illusion of the many-corridored manor, giant painted screens and drops creating the 'maze' of the gardens. Chris Parry's lighting takes us through every season and Chris Walker leads the excellent orchestra along with them.

Gillian Lynne's thigh-slapping choreography adds some lighter moments to the otherwise dark themes of the show - I'll bet Ms Burnett would have wanted dancing gardeners had she known she could have them! Lucy Simon's score is divine, every second song a heart-breaker and Marsha Norman has added and subtracted from the novel to great effect.

Overall, this is a glorious production, with something for everyone who enjoys musicals and love stories and tales of childhood dreams that come true.

Come to my garden, nestled in the hills.

There I'll keep you safe beside me.

Come to my garden.

Rest there in my arms.

There I'll see you safely grown and on your way.

Stay there in the garden, where love grows free and wild.

Come to my garden.

Come, sweet child.

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Secret of Success?

Review by David Thomas Curtain Up on Musicals April 2001

With “The Secret Garden” the Royal Shakespeare Company might well have found the secret of how to mount a successful musical in the early years of the 21st century.

Take a well known story that is attractive to a wide age range. Choose a musical version of it that has had the rough edges knocked off of it across the other side of the Atlantic, but one that is not yet well known over here (so it appears new). Tap into the expertise and resources of an established company. Try it out of London so you can test the water. Milk the publicity. Bring it into the West End in time for the half term holidays.

If this sounds a touch too cynical, let me say straight away that this is a polished show which is likely to pack them in for a good few months yet. It is just that I wonder whether it would have been as well received (or indeed arrived in the West End at all) had it not had the RSC label attached to it.

Although it has a very English feel to it, the show was first produced in America ten years ago. Marsha Norman (who wrote the book and lyrics) is a Pulitzer prize winning playwright and Lucy Simon (who wrote the music) is an experienced composer, as well as being the sister of Carly with who she once performed as part of the Simon Sisters. They both know their craft and have done an excellent job in capturing the spirit of the original book whilst making a few subtle changes in adapting it for the stage.

In the story, young Mary Lennox is the only survivor of an outbreak of cholera at her home in India. We follow her journey to England to join her uncle, Archibald Craven, in a rambling unfriendly house on the Yorkshire moors. Here she has to cope with Archibald’s sinister brother and the house’s dark secrets. As she unravels the mysteries; discovers and befriends Archibald’s sickly son; and then gains entry into the secret garden, she matures from a spoilt, bad tempered child into a loveable girl and everyone lives happily ever after.

Most of the professional critics have used words like’ charming’ and ‘enchanting’ in their reviews. But, if you want to take children, be warned that the show has some dark moments which may not mean much to the very young. When I saw the show, many of the youngsters in the audience were clearly a bit baffled - not to say bored - although the school parties of older children (no doubt encouraged by a combination of clever marketing and a genuine desire by the teachers to expose their pupils to some reasonable theatre) enjoyed it much more.

There are some nice songs which progress the story well and reflect the variety of characters that inhabit the mysterious house. Particularly memorable are A Girl in a Valley sung by Archibald and the ghost of his late wife, Lily; A Bit of Earth sung by Archibald as he realises that his niece might grow to love the garden; and the lovely Come to My Garden which celebrates the restoration to good health of Archibald’s son, Colin.

The show has a very strong cast. The younger parts circulate between several performers, but by all accounts they are all as good as those I saw, Ehiza Caird and Eddie Brown. As we have come to expect, Philip Quast gives a powerful performance as Archibald and Peter Polycarpou is excellent as Dr Neville Craven (completely throwing off the image of the more amusing character he played in the recent National production of “Oklahoma”). In a strong supporting cast, Linzi Hately (as the maid) and Freddie Davies (the gardener) are particularly effective.

I am still a bit confused about whether this show is directed primarily towards children or adults. But I think you will enjoy it anyway.

We would like to thank David and Smash (The Stage Musical Appreciation Society) for allowing us the article on our site. Smash membership costs £12.50 a year or (£15.00 or USA$20.00 for those outside the Uk a year. The newsletter is also available from Dresscircle. If you wish for more information on membership either write to Smash PO Box 148 Guildford Surrey GU1 2FF or send email to David Thomas at SmashUK@aol.com

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