1999 - Lyric Theatre, Belfast

photos by Lyrc Theatre Belfast

The original Hansel and Grettel - Tara Flynn and Paul Boyd

Riverside Theatre production, November - December 1997

2024 - Creation Theatre, Oxford

photos by Geraint Lewis

"Creation has pulled it out of the bag again, their riveting adaption of the Brothers Grimm classic Hansel & Grettel at North Wall unstoppable from the word go. Greeted by a coven of chanting witches in Wicked-esque green and black we hit the ground running, as siblings Hansel (Connor Keetley) and Grettel (Hayley Murray) are lost in the woods.

If this sounds rather macabre, it’s not. Thrilling yes, but the chase is continually broken up by brilliant and exhilarating moments of fun, frivolity and a vaudeville outlook, complete with wonderful musicality, songs and dancing thanks to writer, director and composer Paul Boyd and musical director Charlotte Miranda-Smith.

Take the maverick birds, who historically eat the breadcrumbs, here a cheerful flock dressed in brilliant costumes with colourful names – Francis Drake the duck, Florence the nightingale (Clare Rickard) and Gregory Peck (Christopher Finn) the magpie, dressed like a cabaret star, his inner jacket replete with spoils. Or Dr Frog (Herb Cuanalo), whose yellow patent brogues and Argyll socks dazzle, escorting Hansel and Grettel over the lake to the gingerbread house (whose delicious scent you can actually smell) while vowing to keep them safe.

As for the witch (Jane Milligan), her vocals soar, the sheer calibre of the singing, and indeed the multi-tasking cast of six as a whole, colluding beautifully, alongside the Youth Chorus who helped add volume and spectacle.

There wasn’t a moment when the story faltered or the show lost pace. We galloped along through the forests, skies and lakes willingly, towards the inevitable crux – the witch entrapping Hansel and Grettel in her confectionary lair.  But with a little help from their new friends – they escape, the witch meeting a satisfyingly fiery and dramatic end. And in a celebratory finale, the audience clapped along, enjoying every last note with glee.

Any doubts about whether Hansel & Grettel is suitable for children, were allayed by the little girl next to me who stood and sang and danced along with the cast, fully immersed in the festive spirit being sprinkled by Creation, having the time of her life.

Hansel & Grettel is the most fun you’ll have this Christmas, and suitable for everyone over the age of five, particularly perhaps those over pantos.  So don’t miss out. Book your tickets to Creation’s Hansel & Grettel because Oxford is lucky to have such a passionate and indeed creative theatre company."   Ox In A Box

"Creation Theatre’s Hansel & Grettel a musical menu of catchy songs spiced up with mystical spells

Times must be hard in the restaurant business in the forests of Grimm if the witches can only order takeaway children to roast in their ovens for dinner. In Paul Boyd’s hugely entertaining musical adaptation of the folk tale Hansel & Gretel that was collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812, the long-slumbering witch (a gloriously gothic Jane Milligan) and her devil-worshipping minions start collecting children so that the semi-blind witch can regain her full demonic powers.

The show opens with the shrouded cast intoning Boyd’s rock opera-style number, Tempus Fugit, in some kind of ancient ritual. Hansel (Connor Keetley) and his sister, the wordsmith Grettel (Hayley Murray), are adventuring far from their parents Avis (Clare Rickard, who also plays a wonderfully mute goblin helping the witch cook the children) and Hertz (Herb Cuanalo).

More by accident than design, a haul of pebbles collected by Hansel falls through a convenient hole in his pocket onto the forest floor leaving a trail to follow home. Hansel is prepared next time and when history repeats itself, he knows he can track mouldy breadcrumbs that he has dropped on the paths.

The forest is full of helpful creatures. A bird that stole Hansel’s breadcrumbs, amusingly named Gregory Peck (Christopher Finn, suitably dashing and flamboyant) enlists his friends to help the siblings when they are captured by the witch in her gingerbread house. Herb Cuanalo plays two of these friendly animals: Francis Drake, a duck that identifies himself as a wise owl, and hilariously, a blues-singing Dr Frog who ferries the children across a lake.

Although Boyd’s production is small with a professional cast of only six, it feels like a big, glitzy musical.

The witch, Wicked-green under the stage lights, is a proper villainess, although never scary enough to frighten little ones in the audience. Boyd’s script with its many witty lines and running gags is a total joy whilst the intimacy of the staging with no one far away from the stage ensures maximum involvement in the narrative.

The finale (no spoilers here) is just a little bit special and unmissable theatre."   Newbury Today

"Enchanting journey into the woods.
With over a decade's experience producing festive shows at the North Wall, the reputation of Creation Theatre’s Christmas productions precedes them. Having adapted A Christmas Carol into a rollicking party wrapped in a touching exploration of quiet grief, the company return to a work of fairy tale in the form of Hansel & Grettel (the extra t is referred to but never explained).

All the beats of the story are here – two children lost in the woods find themselves in the home of a child-eating witch who meets an unfortunate and fiery end. What Creation Theatre adds is a wealth of folk lore, deepening the narrative and leaning into some of the stranger aspects. Much here treads a fine line between Grimm dark and festive rollick, bleeding into everything from design to music to performance. Of course, in a tale whose big bad is a cannibalistic enchantress, this all makes sense.

Paul Boyd writes and directs, shaping something rich and compelling that envelopes the entire North Wall space. The theatre is usually home to touring shows and comedians, playing end-on and with simple sets. With Hansel & Grettel in residence for several weeks, the auditorium has been shifted into a thrust set-up, with the cast confidently moving in and around the stage, disappearing and re-appearing at different parts of the theatre. Cory Shipp’s design is effective and inventive, multi-levelled and with a smack of genius, all enhanced by Will Alder’s wonderful lighting design. On a technical level, this is a work that sings.

As an audience member I had some initial nerves that what we had here was too dark and complicated for the youngest member of our party. Thankfully our fiercely capable ensemble does much to ease us into the world. An early scene involving our central duo meeting a group of birds is filled with puns, deeply silly and hilarious. Boyd’s production is unafraid to pause proceedings to throw in some jokes and make us all feel a bit more comfortable. All while the overarching narrative moves to darker and darker places.

It feels wise for my final thoughts to turn to the cast who are universally strong. Connor Keetley brings warmth to Hansel, enhanced by a charming chemistry with Hayley Murray’s Grettel. Murray has, perhaps, more laughs, thanks to a recurring bit of picking a complicated word to describe a situation (proceeded by a ‘what’s the word’). But much of the narrative’s power relies upon these two characters and their actors are endearing focal points. Surrounding them, Clare Rickard and Herb Cuanalo each take on a trio of parts, transforming and stealing their own moments, be it as a smooth-talking frog or a mute goblin called Garry. Jane Milligan’s Witch is a tricksy, engaging presence, haunting the play even before we properly meet them. But threatening to steal the whole thing is Christopher Finn’s Gregory, the show’s sometimes-narrator, near-constant presence. Leading many of the show’s best musical numbers, Finn has a swagger and confidence, engaging to watch, constantly charming a smile out of the audience.

Creation Theatre’s Hansel & Grettel is another theatrical triumph for the company, a glorious alternative to a pantomime, a nuanced two hours with a dark heart, terrific performances and enough laughs to go down as smoothly as a velvety hot chocolate. Make sure to catch it while you can.

My 8 year-old daughter had these thoughts – “I though that it was really good because they included children in the cast and also had other witches. I liked how dramatic they were about the winter’s moon and the witch waking. I liked how the parents got hypnotized. I really liked how they went off the stage and involved the audience. I like that I could see who was who with Hansel & Grettel, who was older and who was younger. And I liked the scene with different birds, especially the funny bit with the duck who thinks he’s an owl."   DailyInfo.co.uk

"If panto doesn’t do it for you but you still want to channel the Christmas spirit, the annual festive residency of the brilliant Creation Theatre at the North Wall theatre in Summertown, Oxford, is the hot ticket in town.

This year’s Christmas show is Hansel & Grettel (it has two ‘t’s because writer/director Paul Boyd was given a copy of the Grimms fairytale using this variation as a child and decided to keep the spelling). It’s hard to sugar-coat a story about a witch who entices children into her gingerbread house deep in the forest so she can eat them – let’s call it a bittersweet treat.

But Boyd makes it family friendly without being saccharine. While he doesn’t veer away from the darkness of the Grimm brothers’ original, he injects plenty of levity and humour along the way. There’s a talking frog who rows the children across a lake, and a comedy flock of birds led by Gregory Peck, the showmanlike narrator with an entertaining ‘birds-eye view’. And when Hansel and his sister Grettel first lose their way in the forest because the birds eat the trail of bread they’ve dropped, there’s only one possible response from the children. “Crumbs!”.

The production opens in Gothic horror mode, as a group of nine sinister figures, clad in long, black hooded cloaks like the plotters in BBC1’s The Traitors, set the scene for the shenanigans to come. They’re a Greek chorus, chanting “Tempus fugit” (time flies) to warn of the terrifying fate in store for the children if they lose track of time while wandering the woods. The Winter Moon is rising, you see, and with it returns the Witch of the Winter, who’s woken from a long sleep with an appetite so fierce it can only be sated by eating a brace of children.

In an even darker twist, it turns out the witch persuades parents to abandon their own babes in the woods by putting the adults into a trance. The lighting and stage effects (hello, billowing clouds of dry ice) ramp up the drama even more. The set is bathed in witchy hues of green and purple at the most ominous plot points, with suitably menacing sounds off-stage.

Boyd’s adaptation of Hansel & Grettel, first produced in 1997, was one of his earliest commissions and it has quite some pedigree. Theatre impresario Cameron Mackintosh provided the keyboard on which the musical score was originally written, and original cast members included West End and Broadway director Laurence Connor and musical theatre star Rachel Tucker, now best-known for playing Elphaba in Wicked the musical.

Boyd has refined the show over the years into its current incarnation: a pacy piece of theatre packed with drama, comedy and show-stopping musical numbers. As ever with the Creation Theatre, the staging is pared back and the set shifts easily between the children’s house/forest/witch’s cottage. The characters enter the action via a round opening at the back of the stage, which doubles (spoiler alert!) as the witch’s oven. The cast and chorus also make dramatic use of a balcony, where the witch makes a cackling first appearance, and flit amongst the audience too.

You’ll recognise some of the cast from previous Creation Theatre shows: the ever-entertaining Herb Cuanalo (Dr Frog/Francis Drake/Hertz) and Hayley Murray (Grettel) were both in Treasure Island in the summer. They’re joined by Connor Keetley (Hansel), who recently graduated from the ArtsEd drama school; Clare Rickard (Avis/Florence/Garry the Goblin), a West End veteran of Cats, Oliver! and more; and Christopher Finn, who plays feathered narrator Gregory Peck with the razzmatazz of a circus ringmaster. For the first time since the pandemic, the chorus is made up of children who attend the Creation Theatre’s theatre clubs or holiday drama workshops.

All the cast are bewitchingly good – but for me, the scene-stealer was Jane Milligan, who makes a fabulously wicked witch. Closer inspection of the programme revealed this grand dame of theatreland (credits include Mamma Mia and Goodnight Mister Tom) is the daughter of comedian Spike Milligan, no less, and she brought his dark humour to her set-piece number preparing Hansel and Grettel for her midwinter feast. “It’s been very nice to meet you, but now it’s time to eat you!”.

You’ll know how this fairy story ends – but if you don’t, there’s no need to worry about the children having post-show nightmares. The cast are clearly having a ball during this rip-roaring take on the Grimms classic. By the time it wraps up in a musical medley that had the audience on their feet, things are, well, not so grim after all.

A great family Christmas outing. This production is billed as suitable for ages 5-105, so fill your boots and prepare to be enchanted. My young daughter loved it, and no nightmares reported (yet!). The night we went there were all ages in the audience – everyone from 20-somethings to grandparents, who gave the cast a standing ovation at the finale."

Muddy Stilettos