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BrumHour saw Demon Dentist at the invite of The Alexandra.
For Brum Radio’s Interval Theatre, Neal Foster spoke about creating Birmingham Stage Company and taking David Walliams’ novels on stage tours. Listen below:
By Dave Massey twitter.com/BrumHour
Review: Demon Dentist at The Alexandra
⭐⭐⭐⭐”A fun filled two hours”
Directed and Adapted by Neal Foster
Alfie (Sam Varley) has been caring for his Dad (James Mitchell) for quite some time and he’s not very happy when social worker Winnie (Misha Malcolm) appears in their life. Not least because she keeps eating the biscuits in their house. Meanwhile, Miss Root (Emily Harrington) is the new dentist in town and she spots that Alfie has been neglecting his own teeth..
With a running time of about 100 minutes plus interval, there’s a lot of story packed into Demon Dentist along with plenty of songs, jokes about bodily fluids and some quite dark moments that introduce young readers to situations and themes.
I was a little surprised by the tone but it does add a background of quite serious reality to the crazy proceedings. Normally in these stories, the main character is surrounded by horrible or odd family so it makes a change that Dad is pretty normal really. Only the dentist is odd here, gloriously played by Emily Harrington.
The sets in David Walliams’ stories adapted by Birmingham Stage Company are complex and often have lots of hiding places and this story features huge sliding walls, certainly the most complex looking yet by Jacqueline Trousdale for this largely unconnected series.
Sam Varley is great as Alfie, awkward and careful about who he trusts, even putting his bag down or reaching up to a shelf there is involved choreography that lets audiences know just how much detail we see.
I really enjoyed this production even though the epilogue feels a bit rushed putting the bows on at the end of the story. I’d also have said this was intended for ages 7+ but as I’m not a parent its tricky for me to make this suggestion.
A fun filled two hours, Demon Dentist is at The Alexandra until 1st July. Book tickets using BrumHour’s affiliate link >> HERE <<.
