The Magician’s Nephew – a fantasy tale of world-jumping and witnessing the creation of Narnia (Sanctuary Theatre until Saturday 4 January)

Truth be told, The Magician’s Nephew is a rather odd prequel, almost an afterthought to the better known The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which was published five years earlier and forms most people’s gateway to CS Lewis’ Narnia chronicles.

Digory and Polly (who lives next door) have been exploring the shared attic that runs above their terraced houses. A miscalculation of distance means that they find themselves popping up in Uncle Andrew’s normally locked study. The magician (of sorts) tricks Polly into touching a ring with a yellow jewel which transports her to another place. Digory ends up following her, with a pair of green rings in his pocket to help them home. They discover a multiverse of places, awaken an evil queen, who follows them home to Earth from where she goes off in search of jewels and meets the long arm of the law. The process of getting her home sets of a chain of events and discoveries that will change Digory and Polly’s lives forever.

Glyn Robbins’ 1988 stage adaption stays true to the novel’s structure and story. The Sanctuary Theatre’s stage is nearly unrecognisable, covered in a lush forest. Uncle Andrew’s first entrance – played by Fra Gunn (The Safety Catch) – is a glorious jump scare. The malign inventor is played as a selfish coward who lets the children take on the risk of travelling through new worlds using the rings he has created. Nephew Digory (Dylan Breen) is a likeable lad – much less irritating than the character I remember from Lewis’ novel – who quickly overcomes his fear to pursue Polly and bring her hope of rescue.

Polly (Bernadette McKeating) is sparky and full of joy. Elaine Duncan plays a range of roles including Aunt Letitia (who cares for Digory’s sick mother) and a cab driver who gets dragged into the madness after the interval. Colette Lennon Dougal is Queen Jadis, an implacably impatient monarch who has previously wielded absolute power (by uttering the ‘deplorable word’) and brings humour to the scenes when the children return home to Earth and she comes face to face with the ‘magician’ and a chariot that looks awfully like a horse and carriage.

If the opening 45 minutes set up the portal travelling (with rings and puddle-jumping) and establish the motivation of the characters in an orderly fashion, the second half throws so many other ingredients into the mix that the scenes resemble a hard-to-discern-quite-what-you’re-eating hash. There is a lot to process.

Lewis uses The Magician’s Nephew to tell the genesis story of Narnia, created by the lion Aslan. Queen Jadis brings evil into the pristine world. (She’ll ultimately become the White Witch.) Her early encounter with Aslan brings about the lamppost that will become crucial to later chronicles.

On stage, this means that the talking lion – interestingly voiced as a chorus of cast voices – is soon joined by other talking animals: the cabby’s horse Strawberry, a beaver, a rabbit, … but disappointingly never the guinea pig that Uncle Andrew first sent into the portal with a yellow ring strapped to its back.

The shifting between human and animal roles is messy (and two switched-off mics on stands don’t help with the differentiation of roles). If this was your first and only encounter with Narnia, then a weakness in Robbins’ script – never mind Lewis’ original novel – is that the powerful majesty of Aslan is lost, and the standalone coherence and significance of the animals, the lamppost, Jadis, and the newly crowned human King and Queen is somewhat bewildering.)

The soundscape is rich and detailed and brings a lot of warmth and atmosphere to the production, though could have usefully been looped at a low volume under some scenes to establish an aural signature for the different worlds as an add-on to the thematic lighting. Only Digory’s accent seems cemented in Belfast (that’s where Uncle Andrew’s home has been reset in this production) leaving the others sounding too posh and English for the setting.

Director Patsy Montgomery-Hughes uses the available space well, with under-stage action, short scenes in the raised tech area at the back of the theatre, and an elevated level at the back of the main stage for Aslan’s first entrance.

The line “Can you feel the wind on your cheeks?” made me laugh and I inwardly heckled back “it’s just the draughty theatre”. It’s good to see the architect’s plans for how the theatre space will be refashioned and improved displayed in the foyer. Do wrap up well if you’re attending a show.

The Magician’s Nephew is a quirky choice for an end of year production. It is child-friendly, but quite serious and very old-fashioned, without the seasonal jollity that families might expect to find in a theatre. Glyn Robbins adapted another three of the chronicles – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – so perhaps Bright Umbrella Drama Company will revisit the Belfast-born writer and theologian over the next few years.

The Magician’s Nephew continues in the east Belfast Sanctuary Theatre until Saturday 4 January.

Photo credit: Melissa Gordon, Gorgeous Photography

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