Most people come to Keswick for the mountains and the cream cakes. For 13-year-old Dorothy (Nimi Spiff), they are the reason she wants to get out. What need for scenery and pink icing when she could be in the hubbub of London?
Grieving for her mother and fantasising about her absent father, she is determined to escape to the capital for Christmas. But a Lake District storm is brewing and, after making a break through the upstairs window of her aunt and uncle’s house, she is propelled along a different route.
In the hands of playwright Sonia Jalaly, the familiar L Frank Baum characters are present and correct, punky flying monkeys and all, but this is also a tale of anger management and self-realisation. Without an outlet for her grief, Dorothy is in danger of turning her rage into hatred, something the Wicked Witch of the West (Emma Jay Thomas) is all too eager to exploit. Without a sense of belonging, Dorothy is liable to forget that home is not a location but where the heart is.
Her journey to Oz, where the Wizard (Michael Hugo) turns out to be as much of a letdown as her long-lost father, teaches her to draw on her resourcefulness and find the courage to stay.
It is a mission Spiff tackles with emotional truth as the winter trees and craggy skyline of Yoav Segal’s set make way for spangly turquoise Munchkins and lime-green residents of the Emerald City. She plots a solid path from rebellious teen to confident adult-in-waiting, taking time for some spirited singing en route, even if some of Ziad Jabero’s songs are overly wordy.
Elsewhere, however, Sarah Punshon’s production is too eager to please a younger audience – younger, certainly, than the first-night guests who make little response to a cartoonish humour that would minimise the story’s urgency whatever your age. Yes, there is room for a touch of cuteness along the lines of Vinnie Monachello’s barking Toto, but it is only with the stage-engulfing flap of the Wicked Witch’s black cloak and the hi-tech bewilderment of the Wizard’s lair that the production becomes serious enough to be gripping.
