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kTHE LION, THE WITCHAND THE WARDROBE

The enchanting and celebratedadventures of wartime evacueesPeter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy havecaptivated children and adults alikefor over fifty years. This year, IanBrown recreates the magic of Narniaon stage.

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“I think Santa Claus was a big surprise when he cameon to sing. He was the best bit for me.” DOMINIC M. (6)

“Oh, I could have cuddled that lion!” ANNIE M. (6)

“It wasn’t just the people on the stage, but all the stuffwith them like those incredible long coats which camedown which you could push through.” JACK T. (10)

“They said Christmas would never come but it did.”CHARLOTTE (5)

“The Beavers spoke just like people round here. Thatwas reassuring.” AYISHA (10)

“I jumped when Aslan the lion roared.” LUCA M. (7)

“The wardrobe bit was so, so magical. I liked Lucy speciallybecause she is so honest. I liked the ribbons in her hairas well. Old fashioned. I don’t think I was frightened byanything at all, not anything.” EMILY A. (8 3/4)

“I jumped when I saw the people turned into rock. I wasa bit frightened.” ALF H. (6)

“I was impressed when the white reindeer started todance, but I definitely think that the wolf – the secretpolice chief – is my favourite character. I quite like meanand nasty characters because they are so exciting.”MAUD H. (8)

“When Lucy first meets Mr Tumnus, that was mostinteresting. There was a real tension in it when she wasin his house and he suddenly told her he had to kidnapher after she had eaten the food. A nice moment.”ANTHONY H. (MAUD’S DAD)

“I am really satisfied that my daughter loved this play,just like me in fact. She’s already fascinated by theNarnia books. It must have been difficult to adapt sucha long story and to put it on stage, but it’s succeeded so much.” SARAH W. (MUM)

“When the stage revolved was the best thing. I also likedthe bits where characters were frozen into statues andthe actors had to keep still.” JASRAJ S. (9)

“I liked Mr Tumnus, but for me the scariest thing waswhen the White Witch came on in her sleigh. She did itwell.” NIKA G (8)

“It was funny when they were talking about what theyhad been doing in Narnia. They said they had had agood time, except for Edmund, who said at the end thathe had been stupid. It was the way he said it.” THEO W. (7)

“The singing was terrific, especially after half time. Itgradually got louder, and they waved flags.” HARRY (8)

“The fighting was good, like between the White Witchand Aslan because they were evenly matched. I wouldhave liked more of that.” HOLLY (9)

“I like stories where the baddies lose and the goodieswin, and I wish I had a wardrobe like that.” JOY K. (9)

Families crowded into the Playhouse on the openingnight. So why wait for the press critics to give theiropinions? We asked members of the audience tosound off about what was special and surprising aboutwhat they had experienced. Here’s what they said:

29 November to 5 February

Rachel Forber from Newton-le-Willows on Merseysidedied from nvCJD - new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease- in 2001. Her death at the age of 21 was devastatingfor her family. This production of The Lemon Princesscomes from an idea by director Ruth Carney, followingconversations with Rachel’s father Stephen Forber. It iswritten by Rachael McGill and is supported by theWellcome Trust. Ruth Carney spoke to Richard Wilcocks:

“The play is about a sufferer from what is commonlyknown as the human form of Mad Cow disease who in the play is called Becky. It’s fictional of course butvery much based on real facts and events which tookplace recently.

“Becky works in a Pizza Hut and her father Mike is aLeeds pub comic, the sort you’d find in northern clubs.Becky sings in pubs as well, in a double act with him.So you see there are great voice possibilities for theproduction. She pretends not to laugh at his jokes andhe pretends not to encourage her singing career.

“Her mother - his wife - is already dead from cancer.Mike, Becky and her younger sister Charlotte are tight-knit, the three of them very close. The sister-in-law livesnext door.

“Then Becky’s behaviour starts to change, and hercondition deteriorates. We get to where she takes thiswonder drug from America, Quinacrine. This gets to theliver and affects the colouring of the skin, which is whathappens to Becky.

“Stephen Forber called his daughter Rachel a LemonPrincess because of the yellowing in her skin. A fewpeople have criticised the title of this play, partlybecause it is too non-fictional and partly because itsounds as if it’s a play for children.

“Well I think it’s a beautiful reference, and there’s noway I’m changing it. And no, it’s not a children’s play.

Ruth hints at dark dealings in government circles, talkingabout what came out of the BSE enquiry into thegovernment’s handling of the link between nvCJD and theconsumption of beef. She has been involved in researchand has been taking advice from experts for some timenow, since before a work in progress version of the playwas performed at West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2003 aspart of the Northern Exposure festival of new writing.

“Dr Steven Dealler has been a big help. He was workingat the Medical School at Leeds University but left incontroversial circumstances. He is now based inCanterbury. There is a lot still to uncover I am sure.

“This play is very political - and it’s all true! Some of thegovernment stuff has actually had to be toned down justa little, because people might think that we’re making itall up!”

RESEARCH THE BACKGROUND ON THE WEB

Here is a short extract from the digest of relevantnews from 1998 to be found onhttp://bse.airtime.co.uk/newsind.htm

Yorkshire Evening Press 2.4.98 BSE expert reveals'lonely quest'. This and an editorial explain how Dr.Dealler had felt he was almost on his own when warningthe Government about BSE and the risks that itcontained in the early 1990s

Guardian 2.4.98 BSE clue in plants Dr. Deallerexplained how, when he found that no research workwas being carried out to look into treatments for CJDthat might be derived in epidemic proportions from BSE,he decided that he must look for treatments himself.He looked into a series of chemicals in bovine dietplants that would potentially act as a treatment andspent 23,000 pounds doing it from his own money.

See also www.priondata.org

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“The play is about a sufferer from what is commonly known as the human formof Mad Cow disease who in the play is called Becky. It’s fictional of course butvery much based on real facts and events which took place recently.” RUTH CARNEY

THE LEMON PRINCESS - THE ART OF SCIENCE Find out more about the true stories behind the play in aseries of events that explore the facts and ethics involved.

Saturday 19 February 12pm Courtyard Theatre The Real Story of ‘Mad Cow Disease’ Artists, scientists and the families of those who havesuffered from CJD come together to discuss the disease,the politics and how to make these stories heard.

Saturday 26 February 5pm Café Scientifique West Yorkshire Playhouse Cafe Scientifique is a place where anyone can come toexplore the latest ideas in science and technology.Meetings have taken place in cafes, bars, restaurants andeven theatres, but always outside a traditional academiccontext. This is a relaxed informal opportunity to learnabout CJD and BSE from a leading scientist and ask anyquestions about the issues raised.www.cafescientifique.org

Wednesday 2 March 3pm Courtyard TheatreAction:Reaction A collaboration between MA Choreographers fromBretton Hall and the Playhouse’s Young Ambassadorsusing found texts such newspaper articles, interviewsand reports to create a piece of theatre fusing excitingmodern dance with the spoken word.

Caird Company, which is co-producing The Lemon Princesswith West Yorkshire Playhouse, supports the developmentand production of work by new writers and directors bothBritish and international. Most recently, it produced TheArab-Israeli Cookbook with London’s Gate Theatre.

Rachael McGill’s work includes Storey’s (Finborough) andTen Fingers and Ten Toes (Battersea Arts Centre).

Ruth Carney has recently finished working on Measurefor Measure at the National Theatre Studio. In 2001 shewas Artistic Director of London’s Latchmere Theatre.

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For the past four decades and more Adrian Mitchell hasbeen either gripping audiences inside and outsidetheatres on his own as the daddy of all performancepoets, or providing others with the means to do thesame. When circumstances demand, he can provokeoutrage or tears: he is an artist devoted to the causes of justice and freedom, a people’s knight in the waragainst cold indifference.

A long list of his plays, poems, translations and adaptationsshows wide-ranging interests and concerns, many ofthem political – he is an active opponent of the currentwar in Iraq – and many of them related to myths of thestruggle between good and evil, fairness and unfairness.His next play is entitled Robin Hood and Marian.

Much of his work is for children. He is well versed in themethods needed to delight young audiences, and canbe relied upon to have done justice to C S Lewis’senchanting story.

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NARNIA DELIGHTSBefore you see the play why not sample some of thecharacters’ favourite meals? We are offering a temptingrange of fun yet healthy meals just for children throughoutthe run of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Each day,a selection of two of these dishes will be available – onevegetarian option and one non–vegetarian option. Just lookat the board in the restaurant to see the day’s choices.

MRS MACREADY’S WINTER SPECIALSucculent Yorkshire sausage baked with winter vegetables in rich gravy

RUMBLEBUFFIN’S RICH ROTINIPasta twists coated in a tangy tomato and herb sauce

MR TUMNUS’S TASTY TEAA delicious blend of roasted aubergines, tomatoes,peppers, courgettes and onions topped with grated cheese

CAIR PARAVEL CORONATION PIEWhite fish in cheese sauce, topped with piped creamed potatoes and melted cheese

PETER’S PRINCELY PASTAPasta tubes coated in a creamy cheese sauce withbroccoli florets

ASLAN’S ROYAL PIEWinter vegetables and beef mince cooked in rich gravy and topped with mashed potatoes

All pasta dishes are served with garlic bread.

All other dishes are served with mini potato wedges and baked beans.

PUDDINGVanilla Ice Cream Tub

DRINKSFruit ShootWater

CHILDREN’S MEAL DEALAny main course, ice cream plus your choice of drink for just £3.50

“The food contributes somuch to making the visitto the theatre a properbig family experience.”

“Families and kids out together get some really raw deals,”Playhouse chef Charles Smith told Little Extra,” but nothere, I think. Most parents know that there’s too muchjunk available, too much stuff around that’s poor quality.

“Last year we produced a children’s menu which turnedout to be very popular, and we are building on theexperience. We provided a healthy meal and a drink atan all–inclusive price, so that the cost didn’t mount up,and this year we’re going with the same idea. We’rekeeping to the same reasonable price, too.

“There are themed menus to increase the apeal of thefood to the children themselves, and we’ve got morehigh chairs this year.

“We do a lot of Fairtrade products and have a selectionof organic drinks and snacks available all the year round,not just at the year’s end. We never buy anything frozenor pre–packaged. The trick, of course, is to be healthyand appealing at the same time.

“You know, the kids are not that bothered about the lackof burgers, hot dogs and chips. To me, it sometimes seemsthe parents are more worried about it.

“The food contributes so much to making the visit to thetheatre a proper big family experience.”

'Adrian Mitchell's poetry for childrenis as marvellous as his work for adults.Humorous, thoughtful, provocative,bang-on for kids entering the 21stcentury.'– BRIAN PATTEN.

ORIGINSThe blues were born in the southern parts of the UnitedStates of America, sung and played by working-classAfrican-Americans. The term first came into use todescribe a musical style at the end of the nineteenthcentury, about three hundred years after the beginningof the slave trade, which involved the taking of largenumbers of people from West Africa across the AtlanticOcean to become slave labourers in the New World.

The singing of “sorrowful songs” was recorded well beforethe American Civil War, and music was to some extentencouraged by the owners: black slaves often played atwhite dances, equipped with banjos (instrumentsoriginating in West Africa) and fiddles. The blues werecreated from field hollers and spirituals by the slaveswho worked in rice, sugar and cotton plantations,influenced especially by the first black churches, whichwere established at the beginning of the nineteenthcentury. By 1890, the most popular one of these wasthe Church of God in Christ, with roots in the state ofMississippi. Many blues-influenced gospel singers weremembers, including Bessie Smith. A minstrel traditionof travelling medicine shows, circuses and tent shows,in which many performers got their start, began in the1820s and really came into its own in the years afterthe Civil War when the new railroads were used as ameans of transportation.

The first classic blues stars to become stars were almostentirely women. The first blues recording was made bya little known vaudeville singer called Mamie Smith in1920. Her song Crazy Blues was still selling 8000 copiesa week months after its release. In 1923 Ma Raineyand Bessie Smith made their first recordings.

Before the 1940s, when rhythm and blues emerged asa musical genre, just about all types of African-Americanmusic were categorised as “race music” with “racerecords” being marketed to black consumers. “Race”was actually preferred by many African-Americans as aterm, being preferred to “colored” or “negro”. It wasseen as symbolic of black pride, militancy and solidarityat a time of widespread prejudice and segregation manyyears after the abolition of slavery, when African-Americanmusic hardly ever featured on the radio and when liveperformances were usually in segregated venues.

The production of race records was very profitable forcompanies which were mainly white-owned and controlled,simply because the artists could be payed less forrecording sessions and could be more easily exploited.Bessie Smith recorded over 160 songs for Columbiaand never received royalty payments in the ten yearsshe was with the company.

Sheldon Epps’s musical about Duke Ellington Play On!was produced in Chicago, where it received four JeffersonAwards including Best Musical. His Broadway productionof Blues in the Night was nominated for a Tony Awardas Best Musical of the Year, and the London production,which he also directed, ran in the West End for over ayear. It was nominated for two Laurence Olivier Awardsbefore being broadcast by Thames Television.

He has directed plays and musicals at many of America’sleading theatres, including the Guthrie, the Old GlobeTheatre, the Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle RepertoryTheatre, the Cleveland Playhouse and the Coconut GrovePlayhouse. For television he has directed episodes ofFrasier, Friends and many others.

He is currently Artistic Director of the PasadenaPlayhouse, which he joined in 1997, where in additionto Blues in the Night he has directed shows as diverseas Les Liaisons Dangereuses and The Importance ofBeing Earnest.

Geraldine Connor was a Senior Teaching Fellow at theUniversity of Leeds School of Music. She was previouslyAssociate Director (Music) at West Yorkshire Playhousewhere her artistic successes included the Trinidadianspectacle Carnival Messiah (1999 and 2002) and YaaAsantewaa (2001). She also co-directed Vodou Nationearlier this year. She is currently planning to takeCarnival Messiah to Broadway in 2006. Nearer to home,she has recently been auditioning for Moses the MightyMusical, a community production taking place inHuddersfield in 2007. Also currently in development isStreet Opera, a contemporary music based project.

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Cast in RehearsalBLUES IN THE NIGHT

Pinocchio could have ended his days dangling from thebranch of an oak tree, which was how Carlo Collodi lefthim in the pages of “The Children’s Magazine” in Italy in1881. It was an abrupt ending for what could have beenthe final weekly instalment of The Story of a Puppet.

The readers would not stand for it, and the storyresumed in February 1882, continuing right up to abetter ending in the issue of January 1883, under thenew general title of Pinocchio’s Adventures. The sametitle was used for the complete book a month later,illustrated by Enrico Mazzanti. By 1890, the year ofCollodi’s death, this had reached its fifth edition. It wasnot long before it became a world classic.

Carved from a log, Pinocchio can’t wait to start beingnaughty. As soon as his mouth is made, he sticks histongue out at his father. No sooner has he been given hislegs than he gives his father a playful kick. Once he hasall four limbs, he can’t wait to see what the big excitingworld has in store for him. Gail McIntyre, the director ofthis playful and inventive production, told Little Extra abouthow it came into being.

“It’s a great piece for this time of year because Gepetto islonely, all alone in his carpenter’s shop with no moneyaround. He creates a puppet to keep him company, andPinocchio comes to him like a kind of Christmas present.

“At the heart of the play is the relationship between afather-figure and a cheeky and naughty child. I aminterested in the way the child learns about other people,finding out that they have needs as well as himself.

“It’s about a child’s natural inquisitiveness - which leadsto trouble sometimes. The focus is on the process ofgrowing up.

“I checked the original by Collodi of course, and looked atan antique book, but of course you have to be selective.We have certainly not overdone the homile side: Mike hascreated a nice piece of storytelling - endearing, sad and

“It really feels good that somuch is going on at thePlayhouse at this time!”

PINOCCHIOfunny - giving actors many opportunities to use their skills.

“The full original version has a kaleidoscope ofcharacters in it and not all of those are in this. The oneswe have are all within the children’s obvious referencepoints, for example a showman who is threatening buthas a soft heart.

“The actors – Richard Kay, Simon Kerrigan and SaraRice-Oxley – were all chosen because of their range ofspecific skills. Our workshops have been makingsomething about the production particular to them. Allof them can play instruments and sing.

“I’m really excited about the music, which Richard Taylorhas based on the sounds that wood makes. Thisnaturally links with the magic of life being taken out of alog. He put out an SOS in the newspaper for people tobring in wood which could be played, and got a bigresponse, especially from a school in Wetherby. Peoplehave been phoning up saying they’ve found oldinstruments. We even received a carved table leg thatcan be played by blowing! We’ll use as much as possible.Andy Spearpoint will create the soundscapes.

“It really feels good that so much is going on at thePlayhouse at this time!”

Three suffering chanteuses, representing three stages of a woman’s life, sit dejected in a Chicagohotel, all waiting for the call of a cheating snake of a man....but you don’t need an elaborate plot inSheldon Epps’s compilation of some of the finest jazz and blues numbers ever written.

Blue, blue,I got a tale to tell you, I’m blue.Somethin’ comes over meBaby and I’m blue about you.

Bessie Smith

Wild women never worry,Wild women don’t have no blues.

Ida Cox

If I had saved my money when I was young and doin’well, I wouldn’t be here singin’in this cheap hotel.I got the four walls and one dirty window blues.

Willard Robinson

10 December to 29 January

16 December to 15 January

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During the Second World War Clive Staples (he alwayspreferred the initials) Lewis became nationally known asan Oxford Don who broadcast with the BBC, his talksbeing later published under the title Mere Christianity.

His purpose in writing The Chronicles of Narnia was, it isgenerally thought, to entertain his readers and tosuggest analogies of the Christian faith, but he did notset out to write a fictional book which succeeded in usingapologetics. The element of Christianity, he told hisbiographer, “as with Aslan,” entered “of its own accord”.

Non-Christian readers (and members of the audience) canbe moved as well – by the exciting adventures and bythe archetypal meanings, without finding that the Christianmeanings offend them or get in the way of the enjoyment.This is why the Narnian stories have proved to be sosuccessful in the secular world.

In fact an interesting variety of alternative meanings havebeen drawn from the The Chronicles of Narnia. The critic

David Holbrook, for example, used a psychonalyticalapproach. He “put the Christianity in brackets” and beganwith the symbolism of the objects listed in the title.Travelling through the wardrobe is symbolic of “goingthrough the mother’s body”, the White Witch is DigoryKirke’s mother who has passed away and Aslan is asubstitute for a lost relative.

Less bizarre readings might be found by looking at thehistory of the time and the struggle against Nazi crueltyand tyranny. A chief of the secret police is just what thelabel suggests – a proper villain who should be opposedby all right–thinking people, an opinion shared heartilyby Adrian Mitchell.

And Mitchell also shares with Lewis a sincere love ofchildren. Many young readers had a long correspondencewith Lewis, in some cases lasting for years. He talked tothem as if they were his friends, discussing his next bookand asking for their comments on his writing techniques.A rare author.

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