Pericles

There’s a theory that Shakespeare’s 1608 shipwreck fable ‘Pericles’ was co-written with a publican. The extent of victualler George Wilkins’s authorship is hard to prove – but the plot’s certainly a bit bleary: this story of a royal family (shipwrecked then reunited) lurches like a drinker at last orders, from fishy to bawdy to tearily reconciled.

That – and the brothel scene, and the queen who dies in childbirth before being chucked overboard – don’t make this an obvious choice to be reimagined for a family audience. But Natalie Abrahami’s Open Air Theatre show sails the briny fable straight into the hearts of everyone (aged six and over).

A pastel lighthouse in sea blue and ice-cream pink dominates Hannah Clark’s charming set for this highly nautical production. Sailor dresses – or suits – help us recognise the beleagured royals. The lost Princess Marina (the sweet-voiced Hara Yannas) and her father Pericles (Gary Milner, a heroic bearded sea dog) steer us through the emotional tempest with great heart and clarity.

It helps that the play’s been rejigged as a moving end-of-the-pier fairytale with much blank verse sung, beautifully, by Yamas and Liza Pulman’s Diana, more a wand-waving fairy godmother than a remorseless goddess.

The random pirate crew who handily kidnap Marina just as she’s about to be murdered by her stepmother’s retainer (one of many fishy plot twists) help the kids get their Shakespeare sea legs right from the start: they swagger through the audience and teach everyone a rollicking pirate chant, which resurfaces to underscore the tear-jerking happy ending.

As for the brothel, it’s more of a circus, run by a dodgy bearded lady who does Marina up in a green tail and a red wig, like a Disney mermaid. It’s a lovely inclusive tactic to give everyone a paper fish to wave, making the surrounding crowd into an ocean that rolls to life every time the word ‘sea’ is mentioned.

This is a cheeky, magical and moving adaptation, whose scripted moments of salty lyricism appear washed newly clean like seashells on a warm and pleasant shore.