James Haddrell takes a look at two new shows at Greenwich Theatre this summer

Reopening this summer, we’ve been trying something new in Greenwich – a pair of family shows – Pinocchio and The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase with the same cast of actors performing both and presented on alternate days.

The shows are very different so it has been a real challenge to bring both to the stage in a relatively short time.

Pinocchio is a gloriously colourful, carnivalesque treat, whereas The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase is a more traditional play – at least to begin with, before our intrepid cast find themselves stretched just a bit too thin.

Needless to say, the actors have done an incredible job in bringing both shows to life and audience reactions have been fantastic.

This is new for Greenwich but in many ways it represents a very traditional approach for theatre – an old fashioned rep season – and will hopefully mark the start of a whole new tradition for our local audiences.

Our family programming has always been important, from our award-winning pantomime (back this year!) to our annual family theatre festival and a host of other shows presented throughout the year, so finding a new family highlight for the summer has been important to us.

If this is new for Greenwich though, we’re about to start work on something even more unusual.

Planned throughout the pandemic in partnership with Maritime Radio and Primary Times magazine, we are set to trial a new approach to theatre which fuses live performance with radio broadcast and the production of a graphic novel.

Thanks to support from Arts Council England, I am currently adapting a Brazilian fairy tale – The Story Of The Yara – into a 15 minute musical, with new songs by the incredible Chloe Bezer.

We are all set to present the mini show on stage and online in September.

We are adapting the story into a radio play for families featuring Chloe’s songs which will be broadcast by Maritime Radio, and our amazing illustrator Malcolm Reid is converting the tale into a graphic novella – so audiences will be able to see the show and pick up a graphic novel, listen to the show online and click through to see images from the performance, or read the story and follow a QR code to access more content online.

Embarking on this concept last year it felt important to choose a story that linked somehow to our musical and graphic styles.

The Story Of The Yara is fairy tale steeped in the colours and atmosphere of Brazil, with the power of music at its heart.

It tells the tale of a young man set to marry his sweetheart, but who first must escape from the deadly temptations of the Yara, a mermaid-like creature who appears in the lakes that surround their village.

The Yara has a knack for hypnotising people with her voice, but the young man’s fiancée may just have a musical answer of her own.

More information will be released online and via the theatre’s social media channels in the weeks ahead, but we all hope that this will create a new way for families to interact with stories and I’m excited to gather feedback after this first trial phase.

With any luck this fusion of storytelling styles could also become a lasting tradition for Greenwich.

Pic: Pinocchio