The title Sorcerer’s Apprentice evokes strong memories for me of the sequence with Mickey Mouse surrounded by dancing brooms and buckets in the 1940’s animated masterpiece Fantasia which I saw as a child (some years after its release!). Richard Hough has taken the same source, the 1797 poem by Johann Von Goethe as the inspiration for this new musical which he has written with music by Ben Morales Frost. While it is now set in Midgard in the Frozen North in the nineteenth century it has a very modern feel with its themes about Global Warming’s impact on the Earth. The resulting 2-hour musical is a cross between Nanny McPhee and His Dark Materials with the parent-child relationships at the centre of this typical folk story with an ethical message and a central character Eva Gottel in a Greta Thunberg style role as the teenage activist trying to change behaviours.
Indeed, Mary Moore in her professional debut role holds the production together and drives the storyline from her first appearance in a loft bedroom with “Invisible” bemoaning that they treat her as invisible while seeking attention through disruptive behaviour at school, only to be told that direct action is at odds with the philosophy of this house! She has a sweet charming innocent demeanour that masks her desire to be noticed by her father and society but perhaps explains her falling for Erik Sanderson, a scientist a few years older than her, played by Yazdan Qafori. Their song together “Spellbound” about channelling the power of the Northern Lights Aurora through an open mind (which has been released as a music video and single) not only embraces the theme of the enhancing of magical powers with science but also provides the opportunity for some on-stage magic.
