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Much like the new Spider-Man film, it’s difficult to seriously discuss ‘There May Be A Castle’ without spoilers.
For what it’s worth I can confirm that neither Tobey Maguire nor Andrew Garfield star in this adaptation of Piers Torday’s kids’ novel. And fortunately I’m unlikely to be pilloried online for spoiling by furious puppet theatre fans. But let’s just say that there’s a reason it has a fairly hefty (by Little Angel standards) seven-to-11 age advice, and the answer lies in the fairly prominently displayed content warning: ‘child bereavement’. So I’ll spoil no more, but understand that this is ultimately where the story goes.
Conversely it’s worth saying that much of ‘There Might Be A Castle’ is extremely chipper, and indeed there’s an argument that the bleaker stuff will simply sail over younger children’s head – as, indeed, proved to blissfully be the case with my three-year-old.
The play centres on the Mallory family: their mum, and three bickering pre-teen girls – Violet, Mouse and Esme. It’s Christmas Eve, and they’re driving across the Yorkshire moors in order to spend the holidays with their grandad. Unfortunately there’s a terrible snowstorm, and in an edge-of–seat first scene that’ll touch a chord with anyone who has ever driven children anywhere, the kids’ arguing and mum’s attempt to appease them while driving leads to a crash. Mum is unconscious, Esme is too little to do much, which leaves eldest child Violet (confident, charismatic Georgia-Mae Myers) to go out and look for help.
Meanwhile middle child Mouse (winningly perky Stacey Read) has woken up in a strange alternate version of the moors, where she encounters a helpful sheep, a gigantic version of her toy horse which speaks with Violet’s voice, an annoying little bard, and… a talking T-rex. Everybody has a tendency to burst into song. It’s nice here. Except something loud and clanking is chasing her: according to her new companions, it wants to kill her, but she mustn’t look back at it. Her only hope of salvation? There may be a castle…
Little Angel boss Samantha Lane smartly directs two parallel stories that are practically each other’s negative: Violet’s desperate journey to find help is all gritty, panicked reality, while Mouse’s jolly, absurdist quest is on the face of it much cheerier, with Barb Jungr’s peppy songs and big, bold puppets from Judith Hope (the three-year-old was very much taken with the t-rex).
You can kind of imagine Torday’s book getting a lavish National Theatre treatment, with a far bigger budget than this, a huge cast and full-on musical numbers. But there’s a truly impressive ambition in a tiny theatre like the Little Angel tackling this pocket epic, with its wild characters and difficult themes. In its own intimate way it has made something truly magical.