“How will they make him flat?” It’s the question everyone in the Polka audience is asking. Certainly, Jeff Brown’s offbeat novel presents quite a challenge to the casting and costume departments. It probably doesn’t give too much away to say the answer involves a flat suit, consisting of a giant slab of foamy material, as well as the occasional use of projections and a minimum of turning around for lead actor Sam Hallion.
Brown’s book – about a boy who is flattened when the noticeboard above his bed falls down – was one of my favourites as a child, but I haven’t yet read it with my four-year-old daughter, Aggie. So when we arrive at the Polka, I’m the one worrying about whether this musical version will live up to the original story. But I’m not too worried: the adaptation is by the ever-reliable Mike Kenny whose hits include The Railway Children.
The black-and-white illustrations in the most recent paperback edition are a little, well, flat. So the first thing you notice about Engine House and Hull Truck’s production is quite how much colour has been thrown at the stage. There’s a checked kipper tie for Stanley, a Cath Kidston-style apron for his mum, a draughtboard floor and migraine-inducing wallpaper. The clever design makes Stanley’s surroundings wonderfully wonky, which serves to emphasise his flatness. Julian Butler’s music is as loud as the shirts worn by Stanley’s dad: a wall of sound incorporating rock and funk that has the kids wiggling around in their seats.
Like Kenny’s superb Rapunzel, the show is told in chapters that are introduced in song by the actors - here, they’re presented as an amateurish company who are sick of the show and want to get on with it so they can go home. That adds a sense of dash to the tale, which races through Stanley’s accident (“the darnedest thing!”) and the doctor’s diagnosis (“half an inch thick!”) to his discovery of the joys (flying like a kite) and pitfalls (“Hey, flatso!”) of being different.
While the family’s mantra is to see life the way they like their eggs (“sunny side up!”), Kenny emphasises the role of Stanley’s brother, Arthur, who jealously watches Stanley’s stunts and tries to flatten himself under a stack of encyclopedias. So the tale strikes a chord for anyone who has watched on while their older sibling does seemingly bigger and better things.
Flat Stanley is an hour long and is recommended for 5-10-year-olds. Aggie and I saw it straight after another Polka show for younger audiences, and I wondered if she’d get exhausted by the end. But she loves the catchy wordplay in the songs, the lopsided humour and the magic trick that sees Stanley folded up and posted to California. And she’s not the only kid practising being flat on the way out. If we love a show we sometimes buy a copy of the book afterwards: this time I think she’d prefer a noticeboard, preferably poorly installed above her bed…
• Until 1 November 2014 at Polka theatre, London. Box office: 020-8543 4888. Then from 6–24 December at Nottingham Lakeside Arts, Nottingham. Box office: 0115-846 7777.
