ROALD Dahl’s 1977 morality tale The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar is among the famous author’s lesser known works.
Aimed at older children, it tells the story of the titular man of independent wealth whose life is transformed after he reads about the extraordinary case of an Indian man (named Imhrat Khan) who could read without using his eyes. Sugar masters the meditative technique that gave Khan his superpower. He then uses his astonishing new skill to win thousands of pounds in the casinos of England.
What happens next belongs to the territory marked “spoiler”. Suffice it to say that Dahl’s conclusion defies critics who referred to the Welsh-Norwegian author as the “master of nastiness” (a moniker that is more suited to Dahl’s bigotries – especially against Jewish people – than to the sadistic bent in his writing).
The story of Henry Sugar is less obviously stageable than other Dahl classics, such as Matilda and The Twits. However, Scottish writer Rob Drummond has adapted it for the stage, and with considerable success.
A co-production between Perth Theatre, Helen Milne Productions and Roald Dahl Story Company, the show draws upon an extraordinary pool of talent. Directed by award-winning theatre-maker Ben Harrison (of Grid Iron theatre company fame), the piece boasts not only Drummond’s very clever and engaging script, but fabulously slick design by Becky Minto, and jaw-dropping illusions by Fergus Dunnet (to say nothing of the excellent music and sound, lighting and video projections).
The basis of this impressively complete production is Drummond’s play, which reflects beautifully the writer’s established skill in relating to teenagers. This new version of Dahl’s story is set within the frame of the very modern travails of Scottish adolescent Mary (the excellent Eve Buglass), whose life is consumed by her quest for followers for her social media channel.
The drama flits between India (where we encounter Dr J Cartwright and her patient, and research subject, Khan), England (where Sugar’s butler and protector Michael despairs of his boss’s gambling) and Mary’s bedroom-cum-broadcast studio. As it does so, we are treated to a series of genuinely impressive card tricks and other illusions that require some quick-witted and hilarious ad libbing on the part of David Rankine (outstanding in the role of Sugar) in particular.
When the show isn’t giving illusionist Derren Brown a run for his money, it’s bowling along nicely as a piece of theatrical storytelling. Thanks to Drummond’s innovations, we see the connections between Dr Cartwright’s self-aggrandising exploitation of Khan, the hollowness of Sugar’s gambling deceptions and the wedge that is driven between Mary and her mum by the former’s addiction to social media approval.
As in Dahl’s original, all is resolved in a suitably humanistic moral. That it is so is down, in very large part, to a universally excellent cast – including Rosalind Sydney as Cartwright, Dave Fishley as Michael and Johndeep More as Khan – and the wonderfully coherent vision of director Harrison.
At Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling, April 7-10, and Eden Court, Inverness, April 15-17
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