Divine Comedy founder Neil Hannon has done some curious things, including the theme tune for Father Ted and the formation of the Duckworth Lewis Method, which he described as "a kaleidoscopic musical adventure through the beautiful and rather silly world of cricket". Yet his finest work may prove to be this stage musical, composed for an adaptation by Helen Edmundson, which presents a kaleidoscopic adventure through the beautiful and rather silly world of Arthur Ransome's novel.
The musical was first produced at Bristol Old Vic in 2010, but it was crying out for a revival at the Theatre by the Lake – at the heart of the landscape where the buccaneering adventures of the Blackett and Walker children take place. However, director Stefan Escreet sensibly avoids a literal approach, setting the action among the bric-a-brac of a dusty attic in which an old easel can become a topsail or a set of garden shears a sinister cormorant.
The jumble-sale aesthetic gives a sense of the transformative power of childhood imagination and brings a rougher edge to the slightly twee excesses of Ransome's tales of Titty, Roger and chums. Hannon's score – admirably rendered by the ensemble of actor-musicians – reaches Sondheim-like levels of harmonic sophistication and lyrical irony. A particularly amusing Amazonian war cry describes the discomforts of being "Born in the delta/With nothing but the clouds and a four-bedroomed house for shelter".
The entire cast give their all, but Rosalind Steele's Nancy in particular showed the sterling qualities of a future Scout leader, while James Hogg's Roger is an ebullient, bearded seven-year-old. Among the barbarians (as the children refer to the adults), Martin Fisher is a devilishly grumpy Captain Flint, whose penance for refusing to join the adventure is to be made to walk the plank of his own houseboat or, in this instance, an old pram.
A predominately schools audience displayed a degree of restlessness during the contemplative solo numbers – which do slacken the pace of the second half. But Hannon and Edmundson's show is a rare thing: a musical that touches the heart without relying on trite formulas and proves substantial enough to have warranted such a swift revival. And if it inspires the desire to see some real lakes and fells, they're right outside.
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