26-Jul-2008

The theatrical adaptation of Arthur Ransome's We Didn't Mean to go to Sea opened last night in Ipswich, just upriver from the fictional Goblin's home port of Pin Mill.   It's the latest production by regional touring company Eastern Angles.

The novel, which centres on four children cast adrift in the North Sea in a small yacht and sailing to Holland, translated remarkably well to the stage, thanks to the skills of director Ivan Cutting and, particularly, designer Rosie Alabaster.   Her ‘exploded' and semi-abstract boat gave the opportunity to move the action freely between the cockpit, foredeck and cabin.    Projection effects, sound, lighting, and excellently-chosen music enhanced the atmosphere of danger and challenge as the crew faced threats from storm, shipping and their own anxieties and self-doubt.

The strong cast of four who played the children, John, Susan, Titty and Roger (as well as doubling ingeniously as Jim, their parents and the pilot) made the most of the emotional squalls as the two older children strove to determine the right thing to do - go back or go on - and then accomplish it, and the more immature response of the younger pair who couldn't decide whether they were having an adventure or ‘going to get into trouble.'

Adapter Nick Wood skilfully stripped the plot to its essentials and at the same time brought out the underlying humour of Ransome's character treatment.

The first night faced a stiff test from an audience that included what Wood nervously thought of as ‘the Ransome police' - chairman of the Nancy Blackett Trust, regional chairman of the Arthur Ransome Society, owner of Ransome's Peter Duck (moored alongside the waterfront marquee theatre) and others.   He needn't have worried;  all agrees that it was a resounding success, faithful to the spirit of the book, but with a hugely enjoyable additional dimension.

Classic Boat Magazine

07-Jul-2008

As refreshing as a glass of homemade lemonade on a summer's evening, We Didn't Mean to go to Sea is a delightful adaptation of Arthur Ransome's Suffolk-inspired children's sailing adventure.

Nick Wood's words and Ivan Cutting's direction combine to make this a faithful and absorbing telling of this Thirties tale.

Pleasingly, it is true to its gentler time and the old-fashioned mores are delivered in all innocence and without irony - making them all the funnier.

Performed in a riverside marquee on the Ipswich waterfront, this was a delightful evening in the company of four well-adjusted British children being brought up to be model middle class citizens by their mother and father.

Father is away but expected home and mother brings John, Susan, Titty and Roger (yes, I know it is possible to make up your own jokes) to stay at Pin Mill where they can spend the summer messing about in boats which is absolutely their favourite thing.

Given the chance to sail out with Jim aboard Goblin, the foursome are awestruck but excited.   But then disaster strikes when the sailing boat is becalmed and Jim goes ashore to fetch petrol.   Fog descends over the Harwich estuary and, as the tide turns, the boat begins to drift out.

The compact but brilliantly-devised set is Goblin; its rudder and mast vital to the action and the action is non-stop.   Even when they're standing still, they're swaying with the swell of the water.   In fact, it took the audience a little while to find its sea legs.

The casting is perfect.   There is Titty (Sarah Hunt), the scribe, brimming with imagination and enthusiasm with unfortunate pigtails;  John (Duncan Barrett), uncertain at times but masterful in adversity; Susan (Laura Stevely) the fretting little mother and Roger (David Ashwood) up for adventure with little concept of danger.

This is the 1930s, of course, and so the girls don't come off quite as well as the boys when it comes to physical tasks.   We Didn't Mean to go to Sea might have been subtitled And We Didn't Mean to take the Girls but although they give a whole new meaning to the term "have to" they turn out to be made of jolly stern stuff in the end.

The production is so in tune with the original book that you feel as if you've read it.   The atmospheric music is also in period - evoking a sort of Vaughan Williams sea - and the lighting is superb.   Funny, exhilarating and wonderful to watch, I Didn't Mean to go to Sea is the must-see show of the summer.

Lynne Mortimer, EADT

03-Jul-2008

I was a Malcolm Saville boy.   Arthur Ransome I missed out on until much later when I discovered his Russian Tales.   So I've not read the original yarns about Roger, Titty, Susan and John, but Nick Wood has come up with a splendid adaptation of Ransome's 1937 adventure story We Didn't Mean to go to Sea, which Ivan Cutting directs with aplomb for Eastern Angles.

The first night took place in a marquee on Ipswich waterfront (as part of the Ipswich Festival) and just a couple of yard from the briny, which pervades the drama - the Stour, Shotley, Pin Mill and Felixstowe all feature significantly - and to the accompaniment of an occasional stiff breeze tugging at the canvas, reminding us that we were not inside a brick building, but a venue which was providing verisimilitude for the dramatically-plotted story.

Four young players clamber around Rosie Alabaster's amazingly atmospheric Goblin as Ransome's quartet chart their way out of an English estuary and into a foreign harbour.

Each plays one of the famous four and one other character.   There is a nice sense of period about these kids coping on their own under extraordinary, but quite believable, circumstances - lisle pullovers and plimsolls at the ready - but the human anguish between them is universal and timeless, although there are lots laughs on the way, too.

Duncan Barrett is John, the eldest and inevitable leader of the pack.   He neatly avoid any jolly hockeysticks suggestions, but captures movingly the stress that a nice boy has to cope with.   Sister Susan is played by Laura Stevely, who conveys with great skill the almost-woman in thrall to her elder sibling.   David Ashwood is excellent as young Roger, always hankering after his elder brother's maturity, but not quite there yet, and Sarah Hunt is admirable and engaging as the idealistic Titty.

Full marks to the technical team for the sound and vision which helps the crew on their watery course.   Highly recommended.

Hugh Homan, The Stage