Arabian Night Out

RSC. Arabian Nights. Photos: Keith Pattison

Clive Chandler reviews Arabian Nights at RSC in Stratford
Dec 2009

Arabian Nights is an excellent production that succeeds in delighting a wide audience. In that, and several other ways, it is a show that is clearly related to the tradition of English pantomime. It features a large cast (I think I counted 18) –including faces familiar from television. It moves very quickly and sparkles from beginning to end drawing on broad physical comedy throughout, along with song, dance and a dash of magical illusion.

Although of course it could, it doesn’t feature the story of Aladdin – a mainstay of many a panto - concentrating instead on other stories, including Ali Baba, Es-Sindibad, The Wife Who Wouldn’t Eat and the Envious Sisters. I am tempted to call it posh pantomime, steeped as it is in the production values and acting abilities that one associates with the RSC, but in saying that it is worth noting that perhaps its biggest show-stopping moment is an enormous fart. Not that highbrow then….

The show features enough puppetry to include a ‘director of puppetry’ in its credits, and to give a lot of space in the programme to the thoughts of that director - Michael Fowkes.

Many recent RSC productions have involved puppetry. For me it all began with the wonderful Venus and Adonis in 2007, which really put puppetry centre stage, and was presented in association with Little Angel. Since then I have seen puppetry used in Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the Tempest (and a bit in Winter’s Tale). To be honest I found the ‘puppetry’ in the Tempest irritating – there was lots of it but it didn’t really seem to have much purpose and it demonstrated that just because actors run around with things that you can call puppets it doesn’t make them ‘puppeteers’. A case of puppetry as set dressing. It made for great production photos, but a rather disappointing production from the puppetry perspective.

The moments of puppetry in Arabian Nights are truly magical, especially the little bronze figure in the story of Es-Sindibad (or Sinbad as he is usually known). Marcus Fernando – who started out in Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre many years ago and who has worked with Little Angel along the way – has the knack of believing in, and causing others to believe in, a manipulated figure. His expert work is completely captivating.

Puppetry is only one part in a show that provides an eclectic mix of physical and visual theatre, driven by superb ensemble playing and which packs a lot into the two and half hours traffic of the stage. If you like a fast pace in your theatre this is definitely a show for you. I have seen busy traffic roundabouts with less entrances and exits.

As a production with a strong story telling dimension alongside all the action, there is a lot of use of a narrative voice, and although this is skilfully distributed around the entire cast, as the evening went on I did wonder if it all of this narration was necessary. Some of the best moments were when the action was allowed to speak for itself.

Returning to the question of pantomime, I would advise anyone thinking of ever finding someone to play the great Joe Grimaldi to look no further than Simon Trinder who gave a truly dazzling display of classic clowning.

Arabian Nights runs until the end of January at the Courtyard in Stratford until 30 January 2010.

[Clive Chandler is a director and performer of puppetry shows, as well as the director of Dynamics International Puppet Festival. He is current chair of PuppeteersUK]