Rapunzel, The Theatre, Chipping Norton, review: an old-school, family-friendly, escapist treat – Telegraph.co.uk
Your panto needs you. It may now be the wrong side of Christmas, but every attendance will help carry the day for those umpteen playhouses that have kept battling through the resurgent Covid tempest to put smiles on folks’ faces.
Judging by the attention the Cotwolds market town of Chipping Norton gets thanks to its high celeb count, its theatre might be thought in little need of moral support. Prue Leith is a local. Residing within easy motoring distance are David Cameron and Elisab…….
Your panto needs you. It may now be the wrong side of Christmas, but every attendance will help carry the day for those umpteen playhouses that have kept battling through the resurgent Covid tempest to put smiles on folks’ faces.
Judging by the attention the Cotwolds market town of Chipping Norton gets thanks to its high celeb count, its theatre might be thought in little need of moral support. Prue Leith is a local. Residing within easy motoring distance are David Cameron and Elisabeth Murdoch. Jeremy Clarkson, whose hit Amazon series Clarkson’s Farm has caused a spike in visiting petrolheads and property prices, has put the place on the map as never before. Also lurking in this neck of the woods is David Beckham, who’s even been known to visit Chippy’s chippy.
Still, the theatre – a converted 19th-century Salvation Army hall – is as sweetly down to earth, and as hand to mouth, as it gets – typical of those venues that get little fanfare but without which the country’s cultural life would be poorer.
If I have a complaint about this year’s offering – Rapunzel – it’s that Ben Crocker’s script doesn’t let its hair down when it comes to cheeking the town’s burgeoning reputation as a VIP hub. The gag-gauge registers zero emissions about Clarkson. No point fuming about it, though: the shortcoming indicates how quaintly keen the show is on giving us an old-school, family-friendly, escapist treat.
It has to be said that David Ashley’s production doesn’t exactly get off to a flying start. Owing to the initial obscure siting of Rapunzel’s tower aloft, those on the left side of the downstairs seating are forced to crane wildly or stare blankly at the stage while Rhian Lynch delivers her plaintive, Disney’s Tangled-esque opening number.
