ANIMAL FARM

Footlights Youth Theatre
Lancaster Grand
directed by Julie Brown and Carl Hayhurst
21-23 May 2008

Reviewed by Jane Sunderland

It could not have been easy for George Orwell to write in fable form his (accurate) prediction of how socialist ideals become totalitarian realities - his Animal Farm of 1945. Adapting the book for theatre, and youth theatre at that, and directing thirteen young actors to play farm animals while preserving the spirit of Orwell’s original work could not have been much easier. Oh – and most of the actors had to switch parts and costumes more than once. Yet all these achievements happened, culminating in this ambitious Lancaster Grand Footlights Youth production.

This is a clever show in many ways. Not only do the animals’ costumes indicate clearly what they are (the pigs have big ears and flat caps, replaced with bowlers at the end), but also the actors move like the animals they are playing – full marks to Stephanie Hughes playing Mollie the horse and the hens (Louise Horn and Stephanie) here.

Shadows are used to excellent effect – to show Farmer Jones bathing his feet at the start (a clever way to make a child look adult size), and the ‘confessions’ and execution of several unfortunate sheep and hens. And the original ‘seven commandments’ of Animal Farm written on the blackboard are effectively added to – so that ‘No animal shall kill any other animal’ is simply extended by adding ‘without cause’.

The best acting comes from the pigs: Old Major (Terry Doyle), Squealer (Callum Etches), Minimus (April Granelli), Snowball (Ami Knowles) and the chilling Napoleon (Alisa McKay).

Gerard Hornby makes a touching Boxer – the strong, but dull horse whose unquestioning loyalty leads to his too-early, undignified death. Suzie Robinson convincingly plays his more questioning friend, who tries to sort out with the donkey Benjamin what is really going on. Benjamin, who remembers what things were supposed to have been like, is played by a suitably morose and sceptical Kayleigh Kavanagh.

Emma Kate Thompson combines voicing a crow with playing a farmer and a very acquiescent sheep (easily convinced by everything Napoleon and Squealer pronounce, especially: “4 legs good, 2 legs bad” ’). Brandon Jackson plays Moses (= religion), the raven who used to belong to Mr Jones and who sings, southern-States style, of heaven in the form of Sugarcandy Mountain. And Andrew Ness as the neighbouring farmer Pilkington brings us back to ‘human’ reality at the end, sullenly watched by Clover - until the pigs appear, tottering on two legs, minus the sticks which showed them to be them four- rather than two- legged creatures. As Orwell writes, “already it was impossible to say which was which”.

I have a couple of reservations about the direction. One was to do with pace – the seventy minutes were all much of a muchness here, and a speedier delivery in places would not have gone amiss. The other was the use of the large puppets. While these were very effective in the ‘Battle of the Cowshed’ (especially because the actors and puppets came up through the auditorium), in which the human farmers are sent packing, it seems as if they were underused – no sooner than they appeared, they disappeared for good. I wonder why they could not have been used again in the final, pig-and-human drinking scene.

But otherwise Julie Brown and Carl Hayhurst are to be congratulated on this production.

© Jane Sunderland
22/5/08

Lancaster Grand Theatre

May 21-23, 7. 30p.m. (70 minutes)

Tickets: £5.00

Related websites

Lancashire County Council Youth Activities
www.lancsycs.org/go4it

The 1954 film version of Animal Farm

George Orwell