Pinocchio - National Theatre

I love 99 percent of music and musicals but just even reading ‘Hi-diddle-de-dee’ makes me want to kill someone. Haha....

Yes, the person directly behind me was singing 'hi diddle de dee, the actor's life for meeeEEE' ALL THE WAY through the interval - suddenly I didn't feel so bad being over 6 foot and sitting in the second row!

Having just seen the production photos I'm very surprised that Pinocchio isn't a puppet.. surely that's the point?. I was expecting something like Oskar from Knee-high's Tin Drum. Its not how I would have designed it, but hey ho

Well. Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-Diddle-Dee-Dee, An Actor's Life for Me, tra la lee . . . .

Rather like Julie Jordan, this is a queer one. There are lots and lots of smashing bits in the show but somehow it doesn't all gel together for me. I think it just needs a bit of zip (a-dee-do-dah) and it could be delightful. I'm sure that will come during the run. Now I know that 'Pinocchio' is not the happiest of tales at the best of times but there are some quite disturbing moments in this production I thought. The large puppets are strangely odd because their faces don't move and it also doesn't help that the actor operating them is dressed in exactly the same way so you end up watching them really and the ensemble in the first half wear these strange masks that make them all look like they've escaped from Royston Vasey. The Stromboli and Pleasure Island sections are also rather grotesque.

On the plus side, I thought that Joe Idris-Roberts as Pinocchio was smashing and Jiminy Cricket was terrific. On the whole I thought the staging was generally marvellous and some of the effects and big set pieces are fabulously well done. I even did have a little tear in my glass eye at the end.

I have been singing 'I've Got No Strings' ever since though. So apologies to the person next to me. And the one on the tube home. And the man in the supermarket on my way home. And the lady on the tube this morning. And the person serving me my coffee earlier. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII've got no strings to hold me down . . . . .

Oh and I saw my nemesis, Rufus Norris, in the foyer afterwards. I passed on my feedback. Let's just say that he doesn't take constructive feedback well. He's got a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush. And deceptively strong upper body strength.

We have several members who are producers.

So caught this last might and I'm so pleased that I did. However wasn't blown away.

I bought my ticket so long ago, I couldn't even remember what seat I had purchased which turned out to be smack bang in the centre of the back row of the upper level.

This however in no way, hindered my view.

So looking and the stage, it is bare, except for a single tree trunk of stage left, with paint like smears of the floor with snow falling.

The orchestra is not seen. There appears to be a black strip, a couple of feet wide that runs across the stage toward the front where the orchestra is housed. Throughout the show Pincocchio jumps across it, Jimmy Cricket fall in it, as do one or two of the actors.

One of the first things that stood out for me is how different this is to other screen to stage Disney adaptations.

By way of explanation, normally in terms of costumes, what the characters on stage are wearing replicate what the characters on screen are.

Now it has been many years since I've seen the film, but there is no traditional Pinocchio pork-pie hat or braces.

When the Pinocchio character was portrayed in the Shrek! Musical, at lease the actor was wearing stocking with wood 'images'- knots of wood, lines, etc.

In this, there was nothing like that. The actor was just wearing yellow shorts and then later on a blue military jacket.

Comparing the movie, from memory, Gepetto has a cat and a goldfish. They're not in it.

Also, there was a fox and a cat? (I think its a cat) who convince Pinocchio to run away and be an actor. The fox is included, the cat is not.

I found it somewhat Ironic that all the human characters were puppets and for me this was the major thing that did not work.

There is some clever stage trickery going on here- the way Pinocchio eats the fish and stabs himself with a knife and the way we first see the blue fairy is via a blue flame flying across the stage (almost Tinkerbellish) and when we first see her and Getpetto, they are huge puppets guided by several puppeteers. When se later returns, she's in human form which for me was more effective that the puppets.

Both Stromboli (who again looks nothing like the cartoon image) and the guy who takes the naughty children to Pleasure Island are also large bobble-headed puppets. I just remain convinced that these characters could have been played by over-exaggerated character actors.

And during the I''ve Got No Strings' sequence when there ensemble played marionettes, they looked like marionettes.

From where I was sitting I'm not too sure how the growing nose was done but it worked well.

Jiminy Cricket s a puppet- no longer male, but a clean obsessed female- and not in a top hat or tails.

(Quite frankly) the whole Pleasure Island scene could have been cut by at least 5 minutes.

The highlight for me was Monstro the Whale. Extremely well done

And Pinocchio turning into a 'real boy' was also well done. Again, clever stage trickery.

However, despite the pupperty, at the end Gepetto was played by a human, which only reinforces my point that the puppets could have been done away with and just plated by people.

So pleased that I saw this however I think if they want to pursue this, there is bit more work to be done and as referred to above, I'd get ride of the puppets and replace them with humans.

Just my two cents worth.

Well I'm not sure how many there were because you don't see them (they're hidden 'under' the stage) but they sounded good to me. I know you have exacting standards P so I'd say they certainly weren't your Chanel or Fendi (big, bold and brassy) but more like a Christopher Kane or Peter Pilotto (smaller, more discreet and fabulously punching above their weight).

I thought all of those tricks you mentioned were just fabulous, I was sat in the fourth row and I couldn't see how most of them were done (and neither do I want to) which made it more magical. Although there were a couple of occasions where you could see that Pinocchio did in fact have strings!

I've just booked one of the last cheap seats for tomorrow night, central Row B in the Stalls. One of my favourite childhood films and I love a bit of Disney fantasy at Christmas so this should be a right hoot!

Yup. I was right. This is WOEFUL!

It's the six songs from the movie (listed on the Wikipedia), some of them played very brief.

I was also there Thursday evening and got a £15 ticket at the front of the upper slips (purchased the day before). Excellent view. You lose a tiny part of the stage at the far right where nothing happens.

The stalls were pretty full. The circle had around 20 empty seats (in prime positions) free. I didn't try and move into one of them as I liked my view and also had space for my bag (which I should probably have checked in, but I arrived close to the starting time).

The slips at the other side were empty, I believe. I don't think they went on sale until that morning.

I perhaps should have waited, as I noticed all of the front row became available online at about 10am (£15 seats), along with the other slips. There were maybe 1 or 2 free seats left in the front row. However, although I'm normally a front row person, I think that may have been too close. The theatre is pretty small and many of the puppets are double human height.

This definitely isn't a musical. It's a play with some musical elements. The first song isn't until about an hour into the show (there are some single lines from songs, but that's about it). The plot is pretty close to the Disney film.

I did really enjoy it, but it needs tightening up too. It ran about 2 hours 30 minutes (the website said 2 hours 20 minutes) and the second half Pleasure Island scene dragged. The script was very mixed. It had some witty adult humour and could do with more (the ratio of adults to children was about 50:1). And designed to be scary (if you find mannequins suddenly moving etc scary). I see this having more of a future as a show for adults than children.

The whole production is really simple. Not much in the way of sets, but lots of puppets. It's all ready to tour.

Some excellent and varied puppets, with the twist of Pinocchio not being a puppet. I would like to see the puppets mouths move to match the speech, as that looked really odd to me when they didn't. The whale scene is quite spectacular and that's the one for the traditional Disney musical audience. I think it does need some more big set pieces if it's going to be sold as an alternative to the Lion King and Aladdin.

I also found the ending really quite moving.

Will go back once it's all been tightened up a bit.

Yep. There aren't many and the ones they do sing, they repeat again...and again...and again...

If you were looking for a discussion about it would you think to look in the Musicals section or the Plays section? The National's website makes a big deal about the songs, and the point of different sections is to help people find the discussion.