11/12/21: The Merchant of Vegas, Dame Alice Owen’s School, Hertfordshire

Written and directed by Emma Govier, the school drama teacher, this updates the Shakespeare play by moving the action to the Las Vegas and Salt Lake City of the 1990s. The characters speak in a manner informed by the films Clueless and Legally Blonde. As with the Sherlock Holmes show of a couple of years ago, it sprawls and rambles expansively for quite a long time and there are baffling moments that don’t make a great deal of sense. But the performances are spirited and the energy the kids put into it is truly inspiring. 

Much of the action takes place on a TV gameshow, on which suitors try to win marriage to Portia, so the plot is self-aware and somewhat post-modern. There’s also quite a lot about the Mormons, with the ruthless moneylender Shylock for some reason now recast as a fervent member of the Latter Day Saint movement. 

The 1990s music selections are nicely chosen, with everything from Blur and Oasis to Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Republica used to build period detail. It turns out that Shylock is a fan of Shania Twain. It’s also good to see the costumes include Britney, Dinosaur Jr and Supergrass T-shirts. (I was a little confused why one boy was wearing a Jam T-shirt as that group split up in 1982.)

My favourite scene is probably the one in which Bassanio sings “Kiss Me” (by Sixpence None the Richer) to Portia, with gently swaying dancers in shades moving behind him. Other scenes are punctuated by a trio of skilled dancers. 

There’s also an Elvis impersonator, whose voice and guitar playing steadily improved in confidence across each of the three nights. One oddity is a part of the script that seems to suggests Elvis was married to Lisa-Marie. In fact, he was married to Priscilla and Lisa-Marie was their daughter (born in 1968). 

A few lines were forgotten on the first night but by the second and third nights everything had become slicker. And some of the Brooklyn accents even started to become decipherable. 

It’s heartwarming to see all this young talent and to witness so much fun being had.

14/12/19: Sherlock Holmes and the Strange Case of the Circassian Dagger, Dame Alice Owen’s School, Hertfordshire (third night)

Back to school for the third of three performances of this exciting mystery-thriller.

As expected, it was a lot slicker. Entrances and exits had been speeded up and clunky scenes had been smoothed out. It was more efficient all round and I was encouraged to see how much the children had gained in confidence.

In a few instances, the understudy was there in place of the main actor or vice-versa.

The plot was a little easier to follow second time around.

At the end there were emotional speeches by the children and teachers, and presentations of chocolates and flowers. You really have to admire these kids doing this with such energy for three nights in a row.

12/12/19: Sherlock Holmes and the Strange Case of the Circassian Dagger, Dame Alice Owen’s School, Hertfordshire (first night)

There are few things I enjoy more than a school play.

This is an incredibly ambitious work, written and directed by Emma Govier. The plot is massively convoluted, with a large cast inhabiting the H-shaped stage and a great many scenes taking place across a wide array of locations to explore all the intertwined narrative strands. Sometimes the plot was difficult to follow, but it all came together in a satisfying way as time went by.

This was the first night and sometimes you could tell. Several children struggled to suppress laughter as they delivered their lines. One scene simply petered out and went quiet until one of the girls ad-libbed, brilliantly, by saying “I’m bored” – in character – before they all ran off the stage.

There’s so much here that’s entertaining. I liked the three comedy policemen – useless at deducing anything and prone to fainting or being sick whenever anything grisly happens. Some of the script is hilarious, such as when one of Moriaty’s henchmen reels off a whole mini-speech about his skin-care routine. There’s also a very funny approximation of leaping off a boat and swimming in the sea. And Max Hirschkorn is such a natural in the role of Mrs Hudson, Holmes’ fussy housekeeper, that it was a shock to learn afterwards that he was a stand-in for the intended actor.

Sherlock himself is suitably enigmatic, but also endearing – such as when he disguises himself by pretending to be a pot plant. He is shy with women, and his kiss – when it arrives – is so convincingly awkward that it makes you wonder whether the discomfort belongs to the character or the actor.

There are a few dancing interludes, which are especially charming. There’s a brief ballet scene relating to Anthony and Cleopatra, plus a wonderful gypsy dance.

So many of the children excelled themselves, but the fortune teller (Mia Dacosta) and Sherlock’s girlfriend and fellow investigator (Rachel Alden) were particularly convincing.

The show is way too long at 3 hours 20 minutes (including interval), but I expect it will be tightened up considerably over the next two performances. Either way, it’s a huge achievement.

13/07/19: Oklahoma!, Dame Alice Owen’s School, Hertfordshire

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1943 musical is handled brilliantly by the Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 talents at Dame Alice Owen’s in a production that’s full of colour and energy.

The plot is fairly straightforward: farm girl Laurey Williams (Lydia Littlejohn) has to choose between two suitors: kindly cowboy Curly McLain (Oliver Hurrey) or troubled farmhand Jud Fry (Jake Mitchell). A few minor sub-plots aside, that’s pretty much it.

The songwriting (of which the most famous example is “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’”) is brassy and cheery. It lacks the emotional range and melodic invention of the same composers’ work in The Sound of Music. That said, the skilled 20-piece orchestra and all-singing cast make the very best of the source material. The kids’ assured (but never precocious) stage presence is impressive and they sustain an atmosphere of high spirits throughout. Several extremely well-choreographed, highly balletic dance sequences see them wheeling around the stage with remarkable grace and fluidity. There are a couple of lovely tap-dancing sequences and a well-managed fan dance. Large, ambitious ensemble scenes are also coordinated perfectly, utilising every inch of stage space in the Edward Guinness Hall.

Comic relief came from smooth-talking Persian peddler Ali Hakim (Anish Shah) and the flirtatious Ado Annie (Mia Dacosta), who both exuded charisma.

On the down side the amplified sound was a little muddy and this – combined with the Oklahoma accents – made some of the dialogue a little difficult to hear.

The only other failing was that the first half lasted for nearly one-and-three-quarter hours, which was simply too long. The second half was much shorter, so I wonder if the lengthy, symbolic dream sequence might have been better positioned after the interval.

Those points aside, the cast miraculously overcame the limitations of a fairly creaky old musical and turned it into something engaging, witty and romantic. The uproarious audience response and sincere outpouring of goodwill at the end was more than well deserved.

08/07/17: Wendy & Peter Pan, Dame Alice Owen's School, Hertfordshire

It’s only six months since I last saw Peter Pan, or rather Peter Pan: A New Adventure – writer/director/dame Andrew Pollard’s hilarious pantomime staged at Greenwich Theatre last Christmas, starring himself as Long “Joan” Silver and Anthony Spargo as Captain Hook.

This school production of Ella Hickson’s Wendy & Peter Pan by year sevens, eights and nines (11–14-year-olds) was fairly different, as you might imagine, although surprisingly it was just as full of irreverent humour. Presumably in the interests of letting everyone have a go, there were four Peters and 10 Wendys. The young actors multi-tasked, with girls often playing boys (but no boys playing girls). Especially charismatic were Luka Shaw as one of the Hooks and – an absolute natural – Amber Gerathy as the streetwise, full-of-attitude fairy Tink.

There’s an exhilarating soundtrack, too, with the ensemble "shadows", pirates, Lost Boys and Lost Girls dancing to Beyoncé, Duran Duran, Jesse J, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Meghan Trainor and songs from Yann Tiersen’s Amelie. What would J. M. Barrie have made of that? The opening segment, set to Emily Browning’s cover version of The Eurythmics’ "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" was powerful indeed. They even found space for a snippet of "Careless Whisper" by George Michael, based around a saxophone joke. The show was full of laugh-out-loud moments like that.

The story is too well-known to bother detailing here, but from the fairly straightforward plot the actors managed to draw out themes of youth and ageing, innocence and experience, family, gender inequality and bereavement – weighty matters treated with enough humour to stop it all from becoming po-faced.

A ticking-clock sound effect between scenes allowed for changes in the stage set-up and also added an ominous quality. Simple-but-clever back projections allowed for the illusion of flying, and also made it clear when we were in the Darling family home, in the Neverland forest or on the deck of the Jolly Roger.

At the end. the entire cast came back to bow to the delighted crowd and say some emotional thank-yous to the tech crew, teachers and so on. There was a moving moment when the PA sound broke down and Ariande Grande’s "One Last Time" cut out. The kids spontaneously just started singing it themselves. You could feel how much they had loved performing and how much goodwill they had generated.