Mr Stink, written by David Walliams and illustrated by the masterly hand of Quentin Blake, has been brought to the stage by adaptor and director Matthew White and it sure is a smelly old show ... and I mean that as a compliment!
This is a great story for kids, all about smells and a farty tramp, good girls and bad, mad parents and all coming (nearly) good in the end ... Mr Walliams has allowed it not to be an "all ends neatlyu tied up" ending which I think is good ...
It was probably lost on the young audience but this team of seven are knocking their socks off to bring the show to life - something that is a bit of a struggle in a very large auditorium simply because of the distance between them and the kids and the need to keep them enthralled for the best part of 2 hours! The fact that it works is as much a tribute to the energy brought to the performances as it is to teh creative team. Peter Edbrook is a very credible Mr Stink and Loote Gilmore plays the young Chloe well - a tricky thing to represent a 12 year old to a young audience! Irvine Iqbal seems to relish the wide (and wild!) variety of parts that come his way in the show, particularly that of Raj and Mark Peachy's Mr crum plays the suitbaly downtrodden worm that turns. For me, ther performance of the night though came from Julia J nagel as Mrs Crumb - batty as hell, wildly over the top and completely committed (and committable!) she gave the part a trully memorable quality which left me still singing "Wake up and smell the coffee" as I left the theatre ...
Kids will love this show and parents will be entertained too ... what fun
As to the Scratch and Sniff ... well, let's just say that Mr Stink really really smells!!
