The award-winning Bristol Old Vic production of Wonder Boy started its UK tour in Blackpool this week at The Grand Theatre. A truly inclusive performance, it tells the story of a young boy attempting to overcome a stammer.
At the start of Wonder Boy the audience is introduced to 12-year-old Sonny and his comic book hero companion, Captain Chatter. They communicate using BSL and expressive gestures, including some very wiggly eyebrows! We then see Sonny arrive at school and discover that he struggles to communicate with peers in real life, due to his stammer.
The show is enhanced by the live creative captioning, designed by Tom Newell from Limbic Cinema. This is projected on to a cinema screen across the back of the stage, effectively providing live subtitles for the performance. These are graphically engaging, using different coloured texts to represent different characters and also changing case, font and size of the text to show volume and emotion. This really added another layer to the performance – a technical feat with 1,862 cues! Simple colour palettes were also used within the costumes, so the characters matched the colour of their text captioning. The Thursday evening performance also benefitted from a BSL interpreter, who added to the range of communication methods utilised.
Besides the large screen, the play uses minimal set and props to convey locations and set the scene, with just two chairs, a desk and two raised platforms. It’s a testament to the quality of the story (written by Ross Willis) and direction (by Sally Cookson), that it did not need any more than this. It also helped to provide less distraction from the captioning.
The comic book concept allowed us to see into the thoughts of the character and provided excellent visual representation of the struggle and frustration of not being understood or to be able to express himself. Sonny has no difficulties with speech when showing us his internal dialogue, in contrast with the challenges of his stammer in conversation with other characters.
Comic relief is provided by his friend, Roshi, who gives an excellent high-speed Gen Z summary of the complete plot of Hamlet, calling it ‘a rubbish version of the Lion King’. His overworked, Star Wars-loving teacher takes the time to support him to develop strategies to own and manage his stammer, despite the pressures of completing Behavioural Assessments from the Head Teacher. Excellent performances are given by the whole cast, with some playing multiple roles.
It’s easy to see why this was the Winner of the 2023 Writer’s Guild Award for Best Play. An innovative, inclusive piece of theatrical magic, that’s sure to fill you with a sense of wonder. Make sure you don’t miss out on this unique gem.
Wonder Boy is at The Grand Theatre, Blackpool until Saturday 12th October.
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