Roald Dahl's The Witches - NT Olivier

{Spoiler - click to view}Clearly they have put some money into the set and I thought it looked great! We have one extremely brief show stop where the revolve just hadn't revolved enough, it was really brief, maybe 2 minutes with the stage manager coming out being very nice and the audience were supportive. However after it was fixed I couldn't help but think why they didn't just switch the two set pieces so the revolve wouldn't have to do as much, but anyway..! 

We also had another mishap which took me ages to notice but I think everyone else clocked on earlier, Bruno's mouse didn't appear for the end of act 2 where his parents take him home but his pre recorded lines still came out so his ghostly voice was expertly turned into a voice from the heavens from Gran.

Speaking of, Gran was fantastic, as was the rest of the cast, and her chemistry with Luke was very sweet, actually at it sweetest during the bows when they were able to have fun and be silly, shame some more of that wasnt incorporated into the show!! The kids were very sweet and I'll give them passes as its previews with what looks like lots going on plus they're kids, but it was a lot of 'stand centre and look up to the circle and deliver your lines' so perhaps a resident director could work with them while the rest of the creatives work on the show. But Bruno's number was very fun and silly. Melody (Melanie?!) the grand high witches assistant was fun, as were most of the ensemble women who all got their moments to shine. Didn't quite connect with the hotel manager who has lots of material but just didn't seem to shine, but again its previews and maybe as lots of his scenes it stitching other together perhaps he's had lots of material changes.

Can Katherine Kingsley please have her Hannah Waddingham moment? I've seen her in so much and every time she is the best thing about a show. So funny, so gorgeous, elevated the material even when it wasnt great.

Which leads me on to the book which was fairly solid however we would get the really out of place 2020 references to tik-tok, selfies, and the baby shark song (EYE ROLL!!!) which were completely at odds with the set and costume design of the grand-budapest-hotel vintage kitsch (which I loved it all looked beautiful!) you could - and should - take out those few references and you'd be left with a nice solid non-specific-time book which was serviceable and did actually have a few of its own very funny jokes. (Particularly when Bruno asks Luke what his dad does for a job, Luke says his dad is dead and Bruno deadpan goes 'oh mine isn't.')

Music wise, I'm not a huge fan of Dave Malloy but the first few numbers were really fun and had great ideas, it sort of trickled out after a while but very reminiscent of Matilda meets Beetlejuice (with hints of Urinetown), but it was good none the less.

End of act one, while the accapella singing is impressive, really really failed to land a punch and if you're going to focus on moments THIS is one you need to nail and they absolutely did not. The act 2 11 o'clock number sung by the little girl as gnome was really sweet (and impressive the pipes on this girl!) but the sentiment of the song was a little clunky.

If it stays like this come opening night, it's fine and enjoyable, if they are looking to make some final tweaks and refinement, it could be really really good. But either way well worth your time to go see, always exciting for London to get actual premieres of new musicals, and this one felt like the kind of musical that would pad out a Broadway season (weather it would close before the Tony's I don't know but we rarely get new productions like this on this scale so that's nice!)