Who needs Esperanto when you could be speaking Munchkin? In Daniel Bye’s adaptation of the L Frank Baum tale, the colourful creatures speak a Latinate amalgam of languages that is almost – but not quite – comprehensible. It is as funny for us as it is frustrating for Hope Yolanda’s intrepid Dorothy who, as an orphaned Lancaster youngster, is already feeling misunderstood.
Shame we do not see more of them as we make our way to stages around Williamson Park, the Ashton Memorial serving as a suitably grandiose home for Matthew Ganley’s Wizard, but they do leave us with a Munchkin translation of “follow the yellow brick road” to sing en route. The score by Bay Bryan and Claire O’Connor sparkles with vocal harmonies and pretty tunes, momentarily making us forget the evergreen songs from the movie.
With the wit of Bye’s script and the energy of Elvi Piper’s staging, the production is a step up from recent promenades around the park. Pitfalls remain – singing to backing tracks, too much waiting around and an unnecessary interval – but Yolonda, with her Scarecrow (Tori Burgess), Tin Man (Gareth Cassidy) and Cowardly Lion (Helen Longworth), keeps us rooting for her as she counters the sleepy spells of the Wicked Witch (Lisa Howard) and exchanges her red shoes for a pair of silvery wellies that, magically, enable her to walk on water.
Ostensibly, Dorothy is on a quest to find her dog – and, yes, Toto makes a grand entrance – but her deeper aim, armoured with courage, brains and heart, is to learn the power of love. It is that power that turns the witch into nothing but a pointy red hat bubbling up from the lake and gives Dorothy the capacity to wake up from her reverie, at peace with her adoptive family and ready, like us, for home.
