Whistle Down The Wind

USER (26Apr04): WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND Wolverhampton Grand, Thursday 22 April 2004 Another capacity audience at one of the West Midlands most charming and atmospheric theatres was the result of 'Whistling down the Wind' being staged at The Grand, Wolverhampton for a 2 week run. Although many will remember Mary Hayley Bell’s story and the British film of the early 1960s and starring Hayley Mills and Alan Bates this reworking of the story moves the action to America’s deep south, where a 15-year-old girl discovers a mysterious man hiding in a barn and believes him to be Jesus. He is in fact a fugitive… This highly successful West End show is now on a national UK tour and headed by Glenn Carter from the original London production as the man. Glenn goes through being terrified, then almost making friends with the children and finally into total desperation. He gives a strong, believable and finely tuned central performance. The three children are excellent with Rosie Jenkins as Swallow giving a wonderfully innocent central performance and she is well supported by the younger Ashley Lloyd and Linzie Cooper and I did notice a few tears in the audience at times! As with all the Andrew Lloyd Webber productions that I have seen the attention to detail and the production standards are of the highest and combined with the popularity of the score, ‘No Matter What’ a big hit for Boyzone and the main theme ‘Whistle down the Wind’ along with ‘The Vaults of Heaven’ to name just three of the big numbers in the show this production clearly pleased the audience and the applause was great for what had been a brilliant night out. The Grand Theatre is the perfect venue for a show like this, which attracted an audience of all ages, and the start of July sees the commencement of its annual Repertory Season another popular event for the theatre and the people of Wolverhampton. Clive Fuller