Gulliver’s travels don’t disappoint

A high wind, high seas – as much white as blue water but thankfully, no rainwater – and high expectations, the world premier of the musical Gulliver’s Travels presented by the Mitre Players at the Minack on Monday did not disappoint. Even before the action begins, its set, which strikes the right natural nautical note and proves as well-used and effective as it looks, and al praise to Paul Bowles and Jill “Wigs” Wilson, suggests we are in for something special and that is what we get.

Adapted from Jonathan Swift’s celebrated satire Travels into Several remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver, published in 1726, by Chris Chambers and Andy Rapps, very much a musical for today pitched somewhere between Claude-Michel Schonberg and Andrew Lloyd Webber, it retains more than enough flavour of original to appease the most ardent literary buff, Indeed, such changes that have been made work extremely well and are to be applauded.

But then, everything about this production is to be applauded. Confidently directed by Julia Ascott who makes us “believe the unbelievable”, and deploys her huge cast with skill, the logistics alone of a production of this kind are alarming, from the discovery by the Lilliputians of Gulliver’s huge pistol to his capture and tying down by the giants of Brobdingnag, not to mention his animatronic persona, she handles the “little and large” elements of the story with conviction.

And that’s not to mention the audacious and very amusing moment of a man doing what a man has to do when in dire straits in Lilliput!

With the help of choreographer Helen Harman, musical director Andy Rapps and the live band, the already mentioned designers and the huge backstage crew of unseen and unsung heroes and heroines, she delivers a show which is as imaginative as it is ingenious and for spectacle on its opening night matched that provided by nature. Spectacle on its own, however, is not always enough to carry the day.

A show needs more and, happily, this one gets it from its devoted and disciplined cast.

From the tiniest inhabitant of Lilliput to the greatest giant of Brobdingnag, from the flightest of flappers on Laputa to the most striking of equine dwellers in the land of the Horses, they are simply splendid.

Led from the front by Chris Chambers who, not content with co-writing it, also plays the lead and is the singing, dancing and juggling Gulliver has more to do than most and merits the accolade “Never had I seen such a man!” when the last number Journey On is sung and he and the whole company depart they do so, surely, with everyone wishing them “bon voyage”!