In a week of major theatrical openings such as this, less immediately starry shows are liable to get trampled underfoot in the media stampede. Much as I have admired Mean Girls the Musical and James Corden star-vehicle The Constituent in recent days, I have seen no show that, in terms of sheer loveliness and final achievement, beats this delightful new adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett children’s classic, first published in 1911. Adaptation is an increasingly tricky game to play in 21 st century theatre: too faithful and the piece runs the risk of falling dramatically flat, too far from the beloved source material and howls of protest inevitably arise.
Holly Robinson and Anna Himali Howard, who also directs, have hit the jackpot here, maintaining all Hodgson Burnett’s key themes of a lonely and disagreeable orphan coming to life and finding friendship in nature, but cleverly amplifying the Indian side of Mary Lennox’s story. Mary (adult actor Hannah Khalique-Brown) is now a 10-year old of dual English and Indian heritage; when her parents die in a cholera outbreak, she is shipped from India to England, to stay with her recluse of an invalid uncle (Jack Humphrey) in his house in Yorkshire. Khalique-Brown is a real find, giving the imperious Mary a permanent frown and a hard stare to rival that of Paddington Bear.
“Mary had not yet learnt to ask after other people” is a craftily repeated line, one that eventually and joyously gives way to “It was the dawning.