Reflecting on all things Wheelie Stagey lately has been difficult and sad. Since June, I’ve been working full time and though I’ve loved it and am very grateful to have had the opportunity (my contract ends in a few weeks), it’s decimated my energy for my creative endeavours, and so the  blog and podcast have yet again taken a drastic slide, and in the spirit on total honesty, more than once I’ve thought about stopping my content altogether, because I get so angry and disappointed when my content isn’t timely, and then question why people would follow me in the first place. The sense of imposter syndrome I feel amongst others in this community whose content I love and example I want to follow is astonishing and has only made the sense of negativity and demotivation stronger.

Frustrating as it is to once more come face to face with that fact, I’m grateful as it’s reminded me that I’ve lost sight of why I started all things Wheelie Stagey in the first place: I did so because theatre brings me joy, and my platforms allow me to share that with others, and all the awesome forms that manifests in: the people I’ve met, and opportunities it’s given. It means too much to me to give up entirely, so here’s the deal: my content is never going to be the timeliest, and my being at peace with that and how it makes me feel is going to be an ongoing work in progress.

To help with that, I’m trying to hold some lyrics from the maestro Stephen Sondheim close, namely:

“Maybe you have to start small,

Climbing the tiniest wall

Maybe you’re going to fall

But it’s better than not starting at all!”

It’s fitting that I mention Sondheim here, as this piece is about one of his other shows. And so, if I may, in the spirit of starting fresh and embracing the highly likely possibility that I’ll continue to fall repeatedly but I’m going have fun anyway: I’d like to rewind to September with the words: Once upon a time…

Originally premiering in 1987, the Sondheim and James Lapine musical Into the Woods brings together various characters and tropes from the Brothers Grimm fairy tales as they grapple with various quests and the ramifications of wishes they make. It’s been revived multiple times over the years and is currently playing on Broadway with a cast that has included some of my favourite Broadway performers, including Brian D’Arcy James, Jason Forbach, and Cheyenne Jackson. It even got the silver screen treatment in 2014, starring the likes of Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt and Chris Pine.

Into the Woods was one of the very first Sondheim musicals I ever saw onstage, having been familiar with a few of the songs out of context in concerts over the years. It was in 2016 at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, starring Alex Gaumond as The Baker, Amy Ellen Richardson as The Baker’s Wife and Cameron Blakely as the Mysterious Man. I was completely bowled over by the design in particular, and as with all of Sondheim’s work I know and love was struck by the balance of the wit and playfulness but going more deeply lyrically and thanks to the book by James Lapine, it looks at life: love, loss, insecurity and growing up, amongst other themes.

It would take six years for another production of Into the Woods to come into my life, and this one has had a difficult road to make it to the stage. Originally supposed to have run at London’s Old Vic in the spring of this year and later pulled, Bath’s glorious Theatre Royal stepped in to offer the production a home, and me being the devoted Sondheim fan that I am with it a short train ride away for me, I jumped at the chance.

The design for this production, courtesy of Jon Bausor and Jack Valentine is one of its many crowning achievements in my eyes. It’s framed as being through the eyes of a young girl playing with her Victorian theatre– and though the points at the beginning of each act where she addresses the audience directly with a very sweet “are you ready?” feel somewhat jarring, the overall effect immense: dolls become giants, bean cans make towers, and giant clocks make me gasp with childlike wonder! There’s a captivating sense of darkness at play, complemented beautifully by Mark Henderson’s haunting lighting, and video design from Will Duke.

This only being my second encounter this show, I’m unsure what direction other creative teams have gone for in terms of look and feel, but here what ran through was a real love for the Gothic which ties in beautifully with the piece as a whole and what I think feels like the essence of the story. I believe the late maestro had given his seal of approval to the vision in meetings he had with the directors (Terry Gilliam and Leah Hausman) a thought which made me smile all the more.

It’d be remiss of me to have talked about how much I enjoyed the design without a mention of the puppetry design from Billie Achilleos, whose delightful googly eyed Milky White is brought to frequent scene stealing life by dancer Faith Prendergast.

The bold and inventive approach to the visuals is echoed in Gilliam and Hausman’s direction: the whole production is brimming with energy, movement and enthusiasm that it’s impossible not to be swept along. There were moments, where I felt the action could have been given a bit longer to “breathe” and strike the emotional notes more strongly, but overall, the tone feels nicely judged.

This score features some of Sondheim’s most well-known songs: “Children Will Listen”, “Agony” and “No-one is Alone” to name a few, and it was wonderful to hear and fully appreciate them once more. Wit and wordplay are for me a staple of his work, and that really comes to the fore throughout this piece; it was amazing to be part of an audience so receptive to the humour. For myself, I’d forgotten how much the lyrics not only move me but also amuse me, even the most “mundane” or ridiculous ones – it takes real gumption to rhyme “ask it” with “basket”, for example, and also the sheer volume and speed of some of these lyrics is not for the faint hearted!

At the core of the piece are the Baker and his wife, both longing for a child. Their neighbour, the Witch has cursed them with infertility as revenge for the actions of the Baker’s father, but will lift the curse if they venture into the woods and  can find: “the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn and the slipper as pure as gold” in three night’s time.

I last saw Rhashan Stone on stage in 2019, in All About Eve. That being a play, I was intrigued to see him in a musical. I found his take on the Baker to have real warmth and sincerity and he really tapped into the insecurity of the character that makes his arc so poignant. He might not have the vocal power the rest of his castmates do, but he can act a song with gusto and the chemistry between him and Alex Young is a joy to behold.

Speaking of Alex, Rodgers and Hammerstein brought her into my life, and Sondheim has ensured she stays there – I only need her cast in a Jason Robert Brown piece someday and my trinity of favourite composers will have been completed. Her recent turn as Cora Hoover Hooper in Anyone Can Whistle showed me just what an exceptional comedic actress she is, and her turn as the Baker’s Wife has only cemented this. Her timing is sharp and her expressions can say so much, and it was tremendous fun watching her react to the other characters, in song or otherwise! Because Alex was so easily able to tap into the comedic side of the character, but also show sass and vulnerability, for me the character becomes fully rounded compared to previous iterations I’ve come across, and that helped me connect more deeply with her!

Comedy isn’t just Alex’s forte here though: Henry Jenkinson (in his UK theatre debut) and Nathanael Campbell take our two less than charming Princes and milk their scenes together for all their worth – “Agony” and its reprise were amongst my highlights of the whole afternoon! Nathanael also doubled as the charismatic, velvety vocalled Wolf.

Charlotte Jaconelli and Jamie Birkett also brought laughs galore as stepsisters Florinda and Lucinda – proving that even the minor characters can and indeed should make big impressions.

In her professional debut, Lauren Conroy cut a delightfully fiery Red Riding Hood, as did Maria Conneeley making her musical theatre debut with a tender, almost ethereal quality in her Rapunzel.

Elsewhere, it’s something of a original The Grinning Man reunion with Audrey Brisson’s endearing Cinderella, and Julian Bleach is once again on deliciously sinister form as the Mysterious Man.

Barney Wilkinson brings effortlessly likeable charm to Jack, ably supported by Gillian Bevan as his Mother, who I hear has past form with this show – she was in the cast for the production in Manchester as the Witch, but she was unfortunately absent that day. But seeing the impact she made as Jack’s Mother with little stage time, her take on the Witch was surely a force to be reckoned with.

As is Nicola Hughes, who brought a real sense of grit and power to the Witch, with a glorious vocal to boot. I wasn’t overly taken with the costume change for the character, but Nicola has amazing presence and looked like she was having a ball, and because of that, I did too!

This production marked the first of a Sondheim show in the UK since his passing, and it felt like a fitting tribute to him: bold, witty, moving and essentially everything I love about Sondheim. There are strong whispers of a West End transfer at some point, and I wish (more than anything) that these prove true!