The Famous Five: A New Musical in Chichester – a bold attempt which doesn’t quite convince

The Famous Five: A New Musical is played with oodles of energy and innocence, plus all the sense of adventure you could possibly wish for. But whether it ultimately persuades that Enid Blyton is a writer who really warrants being thrust back into our consciousness in the 21st century, well, that’s probably another matter.

If you are there watching it because you loved the books as a child, you’ll come away agreeing that they have probably captured the spirit but not quite the characters. If you are there as a child, urged to discover pleasures from someone else’s past, you’ll probably stall at the music. It’s strident, it demands a singing style far too often bordering on shouty, and far too many of the lyrics are consequently lost along the way. Where they break through, there is certainly cleverness, but so too is there painful lameness. The opening lines of Adventurers, for instance.

But the production quickly allays one of the greatest fears, that the creative team are going to reinterpret tomboy George as someone somewhere on a sexual spectrum that poor old Enid was far too unsophisticated to understand, a sexual nuance that we can appreciate only now in our much more enlightened times. Wisely they leave her as the tomboy Blyton intended.

Great too is the fact that a rather more obvious danger is also averted: the fact that adults playing children are often frankly toe-curling. The cast in this instance get it absolutely right and deliver performances of great charm, especially Maria Goodman as George and Dewi Wykes as Julian.

You can’t help feel a little for Isabelle Methven’s Anne, though, the biggest victim of the production’s updating. The reason so many girls growing up consider her their favourite is that as, the programme notes point out, she’s “so often overlooked, talked over, left behind and patronised.” Yes, and that’s the point of her. That’s why youngsters related to her. Sadly we get none of that here, and the character’s value is lost.

Uncle Quentin (excellent from David Ricardo-Pearce), on the other hand, is updated persuasively, the mysterious scientist becoming a man intent on developing a renewable fuel which can salvage the planet. Yep, Enid really missed a trick there.

But oddly Quentin is a character that works well, particularly in his awfulness towards his tomboy daughter. He wants respect, but he treats her appallingly. He can’t call her by the name she wants to be called by because of the grief he feels. He’s a dad who backs himself into a corner, and there are plenty of dads who will relate to that.

It all concludes as a ripping yarn. Kibong Tanji is the villainous Rowena, a villain who has been so badly treated that it’s hardly surprising she’s so quickly forgiven for tying George up to high explosive and threatening to blow her sky high. These things happen when Enid Blyton is dragged into the 21st century.

So a bold attempt then, with much to commend it. But just who it is going to please is rather less clear.

But there is one great hero on the night, Ailsa Dalling who animates Timmy the dog quite astonishingly, never once relaxing, always making him breathe, respond and react. It’s terrific.