Watermill Theatre

Box office

The Watermill Theatre, Bagnor, Newbury, RG20 8AE. A map is here. A seating plan is here.

Seasonal Sauce, 1st to 11th February
Helen Watson now celebrating 25 years.

Lettice and Lovage, 16th February to 24th March
Peter Shaffer’s award-winning comic play features two colourful women; Lettice, who as a stately home tour guide, is given to excessive and exciting flights of imagination, making dull history sparkle and Lotte the bureaucrat who sacks her for inventing history. They meet again only to discover a mutual hatred of modern English architecture, which unites them in a most unexpected manner.

The Ugly Duckling, 3rd March
By Kipper Tie.

Sweet William, 4th March
Michael Pennington’s one man show, celebrating the Bard.

Writer's Block, 28th to 31st March
Senior Youth Theatre shows are always well performed and well attended. This season they perform Beth Flintoff’s new play containing three novels, two film scripts and a cross-dressing ballet dancer... possibly.

Henry V and The Winter's Tale, 3rd to 21st April
Directed by Edward Hall. Internationally acclaimed and joyously received, Propeller returns to its original home, with revivals of two of its most successful Shakespeare productions, Henry V and The Winter’s Tale. Tickets for these two shows will sell out in days, so early booking is essential.

Love on the Tracks, 24th to 28th April
By Richard Attlee. The Watermill, committed to providing quality productions for rural touring schemes, has chosen Love on the Tracks, a romantic comedy loosely inspired by the short stories of Anton Chekov, for its 2012 spring tour. Three people find themselves together on a train leaving Moscow; three people with stories of love, marriage and infidelity. Soon the carriage is populated by a host of eccentric characters as the drama unfolds.

The False Servant, 2nd to 5th May
By Box Theatre Company.

Of Mice and Men, 10th May to 16th June
Written and adapted for the stage by John Steinbeck. Set against America’s great depression is the story of friendship, of two men and a simple dream to own a place of their own. Itinerant workers George and Lennie are constantly searching for work. But George has also to protect Lennie, who looks like a giant but has the mind of a child. Their dream slips further and further away through a series of unfortunate events leading to a devastating dénouement.

Ben Hur, 22nd June to 28th July
By Patrick Barlow based on the novel by General ‘Lew’ Wallace. They said it couldn’t be done; they said it would be an impossible feat, but they didn’t reckon on the dramatic bravery of one Patrick Barlow! Soon to be staged for the very first time, Ben Hur... with no more than four actors playing twelve thousand and fifty-nine characters; Ben Hur featuring some of the greatest action in fiction, a sea battle (with real water); the recreation of Ancient Rome (no expense spared); unexpurgated and authentic Roman orgy (suitable for all ages) and, can it be true...a sensational live chariot race (with real chariots). It has to be seen to be believed...!

Boxford Masques, 25th to 29th July
A community show for West Berkshire.

Reviews of The Wind in the Willows

24th November 2011 to 7th January 2012.

Review from the Newbury Weekly News.

Toad's winter warmer

An entertaining lesson in values by the side of the Watermill's willows

The Wind in the Willows, at The Watermill, Bagnor, until January

You could take the children to a pantomime this holiday season. You could, and the hilarity of it all is certain to entertain. But you could avoid the risk of hearing endless renditions of the latest adaptation of The Twelve Days of Christmas, by heading to The Watermill for Toby Hulse's version of the Kenneth Grahame classic The Wind in the Willows.

No hissing and booing in this one, but it's engaging nonetheless. On Saturday, every child in the house was either on the edge of their seat or hanging precariously over the circle balcony at the moment of Toad's capture.

Speaking of Toad, Howard Coggins is magnificent. His pure range of emotions, swinging from conceit to fury to despair in the blink of an eye, is extraordinary.

Naomi Sheldon's interpretation of Mole is entirely lovable and Phillip Buck provides a cornerstone performance as Ratty, but the show is stolen by Jack Beale in his roles as Black Rat, Ferret and Rabbit.

Individual performances aside, what gives this play its edge is the magnificent setting and the great use it is put to.

Walking past the willow on the riverbank sets the scene, and with a little luck a slight breeze through the branches will help you start the tale before you even walk through the door.

Once inside, the intimate nature of the theatre is ideal for a children's play, where the proximity of the action pulls everyone into the dream. .

Surprising, though, how much is achieved on stage with so little. A subtle change of lighting and a single falling leaf immediately changes the season from summer to autumn, with a dancing blue light on the floor bringing the river to life.

But a good children's play, as any parent will know, has nothing if it doesn't have something for the grown-ups, and here the soft rhythmical Southern swing of the musically-talented cast easily gets you through the sometimes repetitious children's humour.

Steve Watts as Badger stands out. His muted trumpet and soulful trombone is enough to leave you gasping for more, with Lauren Storer's talent hidden, but not unheard on the keyboard.

Indeed, composer Simon Slater got the best out his cast's range of skills, with everything from a saxophone to a banjo making an appearance.

And as you leave the theatre with the rhythms dancing through your head, the warm, comforting feeling that you exposed little ones to both culture and a lesson in values will certainly last longer than the candyfloss entertainment of a bearded fellow dressed as a fairy godmother.

EDDIE VAN DER WALT

Review from The Daily Telegraph.

So, Julian Fellowes is penning a musical version of The Wind in The Willows, along with those talented composers George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. After the lack of a box-office stampede for the duo’s last venture, Betty Blue Eyes, maybe their ship will finally come in.

Fellowes himself would make a rather good Toad. And who from Downton Abbey, let’s just suppose, could play Ratty, Mole and Badger? Trusty Anna the head housemaid, sweetly simple Miss Lavinia and the grouchy valet Mr Bates? Tricky. Thomas the reprobate footman, at least it’s safe to say, might serve handsomely as a chief Weasel.

Whoever ends up starring in the show, let’s hope that the creative team don’t take too many liberties with the 1908 original – as, alas, Toby Hulse does with his musical adaptation at the Watermill, which is in many respects the perfect theatre for the show, seeing as it’s situated by a stream in the heart of Kenneth Grahame’s native Berkshire.

Charm and invention? This pocket-sized spin – which makes impressive use of its six-strong cast’s multi-instrumental skills in rendering Simon Slater’s score – has them both, but its mistake is to give a “reading” of the book that gradually closes down its essential excitement.

Here, Howard Coggins’s appealingly over-eager, bald-pated Toad has to learn a valuable lesson – that he’s part and parcel of the animal kingdom and not a human; his failure to acknowledge his size and limitations causes personal chaos and the more general natural malaise signalled by “the wind in the willows”.

OK, so that’s a neat way of asking a modern audience to consider its relationship with the environment, but it literally diminishes the world the characters inhabit. Toad drives a toy car, lives in a “hall” made out of an old cereal packet and gets confined in a child’s jam jar. Instead of escaping from prison disguised as a washerwoman, the incident is recast as delusional – part of a Falstaffian urge to talk up his antics.

There’s fine work from Naomi Sheldon as Mole, Philip Buck as Ratty and Steve Watts as Badger – sporting customised Edwardian costumes by designer Hayley Grindle – but the show falls between various stools and is not quite grabby enough for younger or older children. The boy in front of assumed audience participation was called for at the end to help banish the nasty Ferret, but was sent back to his seat. His downcast face said it all.

A nice try but one expects slightly more from this admirable venue.

DOMINIC CAVENDISH

There are reviews in The Stage ("the show on the whole lacks the assurance of a production which embraces the story with wholehearted commitment"), WhatsOnStage ("[the cast] kept their young audience and the grownups spellbound throughout" (four stars)), Marlborough People ("the show to see this Christmas... a perfect Christmas treat") and the British Theatre Guide ("an enchanting Christmas entertainment... brilliant").

Reviews in the Archive

Some Like It Hotter (November 2011 and on tour)
Great Expectations (September 2011)
Radio Times (August 2011)
The Marriage of Figaro (July 2011)
Moonlight and Magnolias (May 2011)
Richard III and The Comedy of Errors (April 2011)
The Clodly Light Opera and Drama Society (March 2011)
Relatively Speaking (February 2011)
Treasure Island (November 2010)
Single Spies (September 2010)
Copacabana (July 2010)
Daisy Pulls It Off (June 2010)
Brontë (April 2010)
Raising Voices (March 2010)
Confused Love (March 2010)
Heroes (February 2010)
James and the Giant Peach (November 2009)
Educating Rita (October 2009)
Spend Spend Spend! (July 2009 and September 2010)
Blithe Spirit (May 2009)
Bubbles (April to May and September to October 2009)
A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice (March 2009)
Life X 3 (January 2009)
Matilda and Duffy's Stupendous Space Adventure (November 2008)
The Sirens' Call (November 2008)
Our Country's Good (September 2008)
See Newbury Dramatic Society for a review of The Recruiting Officer (October 2008)
Sunset Boulevard (July 2008)
Boxford Masques - Knight and Day (July 2008)
Black Comedy and The Bowmans (May 2008)
London Assurance (April 2008)
Micky Salberg's Crystal Ballroom Dance Band (April 2008 and on tour)
Great West Road (March 2008)
Merrily We Roll Along (March 2008)
Honk! (November 2007)
Rope (September 2007)
Martin Guerre (July 2007)
Twelfth Night (June 2007)
The Story of a Great Lady (April and September 2007, and on tour)
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (April 2007)
For Services Rendered (March 2007)
Plunder (January 2007)
The Snow Queen (November 2006)
Peter Pan in Scarlet (October 2006)
The Taming of the Shrew (September 2006 and on tour in 2007)
Hot Mikado (July 2006 and September 2009)
Boxford Masques: The Crowning of the Year (July 2006)
Hobson's Choice (May 2006)
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (April 2006)
Tartuffe (February 2006)
The Jungle Book (November 2005)
The Gilded Lilies (October 2005)
Copenhagen (September 2005)
The Garden of Llangoed (September 2005 and September 2006)
Thieves' Carnival (July 2005)
The Shed (July 2005)
Mack and Mabel (May 2005)
The Odyssey (May 2005)
Broken Glass (April 2005)
The Winter's Tale (January 2005)
Arabian Nights (December 2004)
See Newbury Dramatic Society for a review of Whose Life is it Anyway? (November 2004)
Multiplex (November 2004)
Neville's Island (September 2004)
The Comedian (September 2004 and March 2005)
Raising Voices Again (September 2004)
Pinafore Swing (July 2004)
The Venetian Twins (May 2004)
The Gentleman from Olmedo (April 2004)
Mr & Mrs Schultz (March 2004 and on tour)
Sweeney Todd (February 2004)
The Emperor and the Nightingale (November 2003)
See Newbury Dramatic Society for a review of An Ideal Husband (November 2003)
A Star Danced (September 2003)
The Fourth Fold (September 2003)
The Last Days of the Empire (July 2003)
Accelerate (July 2003)
Dreams from a Summer House (May 2003)
The Triumph of Love (April 2003)
Gigolo (March 2003)
Raising Voices (March 2003)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (February 2003)
The Firebird (November 2002)
Ten Cents a Dance (September 2002)
Dancing at Lughnasa (July 2002)
Love in a Maze (June 2002)
Fiddler on the Roof (April 2002)
I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls (March 2002 and March 2006)
Only a Matter of Time (February 2002)
Cinderella and the Enchanted Slipper (November 2001)
Piaf (October 2001)
The Merchant of Venice (October 2001)
Witch (September 2001)
The Clandestine Marriage (August 2001)
The Importance of Being Earnest (May 2001)
Gondoliers (March 2001)
Rose Rage (February 2001)
Carmen (July 2000)