ANIMAL FARM

On the face of things, George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ looks fairly unpromising as material for the theatre. The narrative, it’s true, has some genuinely dramatic moments, several of the characters, animal or human, are well-rounded and the dialogue reads convincingly, but the novel as a whole is a great work of satirical ideas, as opposed to the kind of story full of surprise situations and intense character relationships which transfers easily to the stage.

In fact, as Sarah Dobson’s splendid junior school production showed, the core of the book has all the ingredients for a lively and absorbing show. Using Peter Hall’s version, with several additions of her own, she was able to underline the political allegory at the novel’s heart without having to sacrifice the pace and momentum of an increasingly dark and menacing fable, one whose dilemmas involve the audience
as much as the characters on the set.

There was a marvellous use of grouping and crowd movement throughout. This was a perfect ensemble piece, an example of team work at its strongest, with some sympathetic playing to one another’s strengths from the various actors, including some powerful contributions from the girls of CLSG. Tildy Shaw Miller and Tessa Lieven Wright made a cleverly-contrasted pair of horses, the latter particularly skilful in portraying the frivolous airhead Mollie. Daniel Mair cleverly grasped the ironic and subversive aspects of
Benjamin the donkey, Peter Kandunias’s Boxer was a wonderful study in tragic
stupidity and his fellow carthorse, Old Major, was given a craggy dignity by
Ben Jaffe. Muriel the Goat, female, obviously, in the book, was cast as a male,
an effective cameo role for Rory MacLean and there was excellent support from
Sam Emlyn Jones, Jack Curtin, Sam Llewellyn Smith and Aaryaman Vaidya. The
humans were a fine gallery of low-lifes in the form of Michael Barnes and Dougal Rea.

At the drama’s centre are four exceptionally rewarding roles. Leo Reich and Adam Husain, as the odious Squealer and the fawning Minimus had the unenviable task of making  themselves utterly loathsome, one which each actor discharged with admirable relish. Asher Brawer, polished in delivery and confident in manner, skilfully ratcheted up the tension between his character, Snowball, and that of the monstrously plausible – and plausibly monstrous – Napoleon, discharged with lethal authority by Marcus Knight-Adams, a performer who clearly enjoys his time on the stage and is keen that we should enjoy it too.     

Credit to a first-rate production team and tech crew, to the fine cast whose talents they showcased and to Miss Dobson for a vital, thought-provoking and consistently entertaining evening.

JBK