Princess Smartypants will be rounding out its current UK tour with a run at the Lyric Hammersmith from the 28th of May to the 1st of June. This energetic adaptation of the much-loved children’s story brims with creativity and confidence.
There is always a challenge in taking the material of a book that can be read in a handful of minutes and fleshing it out to an hour, however, the original 1986 children’s book written by Babette Cole, was pleasingly ahead of its time in giving us a no-nonsense female protagonist to drive the action.
This is built on and provides the bedrock to the Wardrobe Ensemble’s extended adaptation. They playfully explore the worth of independence and the strength and that lies in Mother/Daughter relationships. The highly independent and fun-loving Princess Smartypants tackles a seemingly never-ending train of suitors, whilst being pressured by her parents to wed.
We are taken on a creative and frantic jaunt through the highs and lows of her attempts to deflect and dissuade the increasingly moronic suitors with a variety of singing, dancing and slapstick humour to keep us bobbing along. The piece deviates strongly away from the book in the last third, offering a perilous, climactic adventure that allows the message of the story to land with more weight.
Smartypants herself is performed with gusto by the outstanding Alice Vilanculo, who is backed brilliantly by the all singing, all dancing, multi-roling ensemble of Jesse Meadows and Tom England. She also has a friendly pet dragon along for the ride (Eva Redman), who plays part narrator part musician on both drums and keyboard. Initially, the show starts a little low on energy as the character choice for the narrator/dragon leans a little towards nonchalant, which isn’t great for revving up a young crowd. However, once the main thrust of the action gets going the show picks up and aligns with that well defined tone that you might get with a CBeebies show (fully meant as a compliment, they are masters of pitching their shows right at their target audience).
Director, Tom Brennan, keeps the comedy flowing with the children thoroughly enjoying the audience participation and lively musical interludes. Princess Smartypants creates a child friendly atmosphere, is bags of fun and rollicks along at a jolly pace.
Tour listings can be found here
