The Wind In The Willows

Poot! Poot! Golf and fart jokes put the Wind In The Willows

Bella Bartock

Whenever our arts correspondent, BELLA BARTOCK, fancies a nostalgic trip back to a long lost England, she heads for Coulsdon, where this week there’s a summer production of a gem from the Edwardian era

So it was that one evening this week, I made my way to the Coulsdon Manor Hotel, where I am told that a woman who once stood up to Hitler used to practise her golf.

Fortunately, given the recent heatwave, on arrival I was able to go to the 19th hole where I acquired a deliciously iced G&T (a large one, of course), before making this, my by now annual visit to the Theatre Workshop Coulsdon for their summer production, and a nostalgic look back to a long lost England with all its uncertainties, foibles and fears that can resonate back to the modern day. Last year, Dick Barton And The Slaves Of The Sultan referred back to inter-war Home Service radio England. This time, and with a run that extends throughout next week, the drama group take us to the Edwardian delights of the river bank. There being absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats with Wind In The Willows. Or dodging the occasional stray golf ball.

The setting, in a copse by the 10th fairway, works really well for this play, even with the distraction of an occasional pair in plus-fours playing through on twilight rates. Local timber merchant Dunwoody’s products serve the company very well.

It is nearly 30 years since Alan Bennett’s National Theatre revival of Kenneth Grahame’s classic story, and it has inspired countless productions since, not least with the ingenuity of staging the riverbank scenes. In Coulsdon’s version, the costumes are gorgeous and the props of caravan, car, train and boat are a marvel in construction and imagination; in the case of the boat, it’s close to a mystery in how it gets across a grass surface.

The production is presented as the classic children’s tale, but is able to tell a more adult story without grotesque double entendre. Yes, there is an English obsession with flatulence from the excellently put-upon cart horse Albert, played by northern accented Simeon Dawes, but the exploitative nature of the Ratty/Mole relationship is only gently hinted at. Mike Brown carries on from last summer in being powerfully confident in his role as Badger and after some early rushed lines Richard Lloyd is appropriately expansive as Toad.

Joe Wilson, as Ratty, is once again a well-studied deliverer of a cut-glass accent to place the story firmly back to pre-First World War England. Although these nostalgia trips might be disturbing to ears younger than mine, the cast does pull off the trick of painting a vivid portrait of a bourgeois set of chaps disturbed by the rebellious underclass of weasels and stoats in the wild wood. I can’t quite remember it myself, but even a hundred years ago there was class war of a kind, when a less-cultured, working-class accent was deemed to be in some manner a threat. There is chanted hate speech, too, in, “We don’t like moles! They belong in holes!” Bruce Montgomery as the Chief Weasel is deliciously threatening. Hannah Montgomery playing a support role this year was still eminently noticeable as an admirably cackling Wildwooder.

Even though Mole is played by Anya Destiny, which perhaps dilutes the impact a touch, there is a condescension in the piece to women, in looking down at the Washer, Gypsy and Barge women. The bourgeois-dominated nature of the judiciary in the possible lenient treatment of Toad has resonance through the notoriously biased Thorpe trial judge, Justice Joseph Cantley, to the modern-day magistrates’ court. Here, the performance was well-judged (geddit?!) by Tim Young as the Magistrate.

Then there is the threat to the idealised country idyll from Toad’s conspicuous consumption and unhealthy obsession with cars. A most apposite story for the local 20mph speed restriction opponents, even for Coulsdon resident Peter Morgan. Poot poot!

Thus this is a play for all the family, as evident by an audience with young people in the front row and grandparents behind them. Maybe a 7.45pm start is a bit late when it creates an after-10pm finish for the toddlers present. There’s that, and the added excitement of the pre-performance announcement that stepping beyond the blue wire marking out the stage could lead to electrocution…

One thing I did find a trifle tiresome was in being treated as if some sort of economy passenger with the dreadful Ryanair. As if! Having not brought a deckchair with me on my journey to the theatre – well, would you? – after showing my ticket, I was expected to pay for my chair, or be forced to sit on the bone-hard ground. At my age?!

First night nerves must have struck when I was there, too, affecting even the more accomplished and experienced members of the cast. At one point, Badger was supposed to be asking Mole and Ratty whether “They had had a little shock.” Perhaps dry-mouthed in the heat, the actor found himself uttering a four-letter word which also began with “sh”. I nearly spilled my drink, though many of the children present had a good laugh. Perhaps they’ll keep it in through the rest of the run.

Bella Bartock for Inside Croydon, 28 July 2018

A happy summer highlight with an undertone of darkness

Liz Sheppard-Jones

Not so much ‘Wind in the Willows’ as ‘a howling gale on the golf course’ – the long hot spell of weather had broken the previous day, and Saturday 28th July was blowy. This presented Theatre Workshop Coulsdon with a serious meteorological challenge as the trees above the actor’s heads tossed noisily to and fro in the wind. Added to this, a technical hitch meant that the projection of sound in the opening scenes was not what it needed to be and a few early lines were almost inaudible. As Moley might have said ‘Bother those microphones!’. That the players carried on undistracted, overcame all difficulties (credit to the problem-solving team behind the scenes who soon improved the sound) and delivered a marvellous evening’s entertainment is greatly to their credit.

The company stages an open air play each year in a natural oasis in the grounds of the Coulsdon Manor Hotel. It’s a perfect spot – the clump of trees around the clearing is cool on a hot day, sheltered from all but the most torrential downpour, and is only a few minutes’ stroll through the woods from the hotel car park. the play has become a Croydon summer highlight and once again this year it hits the spot.

The story of The Wind in the Willows is, of course, a delight. Its central characters are played with charm and verve. I loved them all, but developed a particularly soft spot for Anya Destiney as the Mole. The weasels, ferrets and stoats under the leadership of Chief Weasel Bruce Montgomery are suitably villainous, Mr Badger (Mike Brown) formidable, Ratty (Joe Wilson) quizzical, the Toad (Richard Lloyd) quite splendid, and Simeon Dawes needs just a pair of ears on his hat to own the role of Albert, the barge-pulling horse. Younger members of the company have fun as woodland animals, and the props (in particular Toad’s car and the caravan) were superb.

The play – like the book on which it is based – is gently appealing without being twee. That’s because at times it breathes a whisper of chill. A baby rabbit is carried off by the weasels, to the distress of her mother. The class system cares nothing for justice, and as a gentleman of means Toad brings the action to a close by bribing a pardon for his crimes from the judge. Albert the barge-horse – without doubt a founder member of the barge-horse Trades Union – would, had he heard about this, have put in a world-weary word. The Wind in the Willows is a play about England – on the surface, a comforting rural vision of an England which for many was never a reality at all, but beneath is an undertow of darkness. Our country could scarcely be further from comfort than it is right now. Perhaps that was why, in a beautiful green place in the evening, nostalgia for gentle vanished certainties and timeless peace stole over us all as we watched. The play’s wistful closing song will be remembered by the watching children when their long summer holiday ends and they feel, for the first time in their lives, the sorrow of time passing and the pain of lost, uncapturable joy.

Liz Sheppard-Jones for The Croydon Citizen, Thursday 2 August 2018