‘Stories and More’ Theatre Company has been entertaining audiences in Hamilton for many years now, with the two-fold effect of building up audiences and a pool of talent, particularly from the very young. With productions offered every year at the outdoor Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival and in school holidays, this company has been a strong influence on a now thriving performance culture.

Cecilia Mooney, one of the directors of the company and often the author of their scripts, has chosen an adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s novel, by Glynne Robbins, chronologically the first in the history of Narnia, to direct this school holidays’ flawless treat.

With its elements of fantasy and magic, the story is full of technical and staging challenges: explosions, talking animals, disappearing characters, new and strange worlds and an unlikely collection of Edwardian Londoners. However, from the regular gentle ‘Stories and More’ opening, where a group of children gather around Granddad (Owen Mooney) to choose a book to read, the production rises in interest and intensity to a very satisfying magical ending.

Digory Kirke has been sent to London where his aunt and uncle (brother and sister) are taking care of his very ill mother. Left alone to his own devices he befriends a neighbouring girl, Polly Plummer, and the two set out exploring the attics that link the rows of houses in their terrace. They come upon Uncle Andrew’s study in which he conducts magical experiments, as he sees himself as a great magician. Unfortunately they also come upon Uncle Andrew, who decides to experiment on them, and trick Polly into wearing one of his yellow disappearing rings. Digory has no choice but to go after Polly with a pair of antidote green rings and the two find themselves in a barren world where the magical mystery tour begins. 

Megan Goldsman and Eli Oliver as Polly and Digory are just right. Though adult actors, they retain their characters’ balance perfectly between politeness and curiosity as befits storybook innocents. But they have heroic tendencies as well, and a strong sense of justice and right shines through their actions and interactions, especially with Jadis, the mad queen of Charn, who has razed her entire world completely and looks out over her empire of devastation with pleasure.

Played as a vigourous Amazonian with obvious relish by Missy Mooney, Jadis initiates one of the best fight scenes I have seen onstage, when she grabs onto Digory as he is wearing his green ring. To his horror, her anarchic energy comes with him to his sedate corner of London and wreaks destruction on passers-by, street urchins, several Bobbies and a cabbie and horse. Incidentally this scene explains the appearance of a London street lamp in the middle of Narnia.

Phil Dalziel gives Uncle Andrew a wild-haired quirky interpretation, where magical experimentation justifies any end. No wonder he seems mesmerized by Jadis’ true villainy.   

Philip Garrity’s Aslan brings together all the complexity of Lewis’ characterisation, the ferocity of the great lion matched by the gentleness of a parent. The scenes where he sings the world of Narnia into being are beautiful and the attendant beasts and birds, to whom he gives the power of speech, a wondrous council of animals.  All the worlds come together when he names as the king and queen of Narnia, Frank the cabbie (in a delightful cameo by Bevan Thomas) and Helen his low-born wife, both deemed worthy of the crowns by their honesty and humility, and in keeping with Lewis’ Christian values.

The many children in the cast are extremely well-drilled and give fine performances but top marks must go to those in the hot costumes, such as the beavers, badgers and birds (and not forgetting the bunny).

The special effects are very well managed and plotted in the production, so, with deft lighting, dry ice, swift and well-designed set and make-up and costume changes, we see transformations of world, a magical tree, a flying horse, a sprouting lamp post, and an array of sound effects from magic tinkles to Aslan’s roar. The audience of tiny tots to grandparents is enthralled by this step out of our time and into another world.

Well done to the huge cast and crew for this uplifting entertainment and to Cecilia Mooney for calling it all into being. 

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