Review: The Sound of Music at Curve, Leicester

★★★★

Christmas at Curve, once again, will be one of your favourite things!

Molly Lynch, Aviva Tulley and the children's cast of The Sound of Music, photo by Marc Brenner

It’s up there with raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Because each year, without fail, Nikolai Foster directs a mega-musical revival that reiterates the theatre's gold standard of craft and creation.

Here we travel to the hills of Austria for a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music - a festive essential. Once again, Michael Taylor has assembled a marvel of a set that transcends the stage, with real-life trees and swing sets curving around the theatre's arch. The nuns from the Abbey ascend through the orchestra pit. Firefly golden light illuminates the naked trees. Rocky mountaintops fade in and out of fog, appearing with the morning sun (lighting by Mark Henderson) as a real running waterfall cascades down the centre of the stage.

The von Trapp's estate becomes a place of play with the arrival of novice nun, Maria (Molly Lynch) as their new governess. She fills the air with music, and over time, all seven of the children gradually relax their marching muscles, beginning to bunny hop, outspread their arms as wings and mock shooting bows from arrows. Liesl's (Aviva Tulley) and Rolf's (Christian Cooper) "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" is practically euphoric, with her perched on the handlebars of his bike, a sense of forbidden, bittersweet love.

However, stormtroopers lurk in the background of the home, drawing closer and closer as the threat deepens. With that, Ebony Molina's choreography sees arms regimented into sharp movements and legs marching into submission. At one point, a family folk dance formation resembles a swastika. It's only at a ball where the adults are free to let loose, silk clinging to their bodies as before the children's "So Long, Farewell."

As the annexation looms closer, Foster demands we sit with the uncomfortable. Trees cast shadows, as the Nazis use torches to survey, as if we, as the audience, too, are under threat.

George Dyer's arrangements add a rocky edge to the chocolate box tunes "My Favourite Things" and "Do-Re-Mi" with the first act in particular, performed magnificently by a band directed by David Doidge. The decision to have the cast perform in their own accents reimagines the numbers anew. Lynch's delightful Irish accent makes her plucky Maria a treat, her zest for life sending moods to mountain heights. It's not so much acting as embodying. The choice is effective too with the von Trapp children (Leo Hollingsworth, Matilda Hennessy, Theodore Traat, Isla Granville, Georgia Riga and Mimi-Kimara Clarson), whose boundless energy was giddy and pure. It also makes their patriotism and fear feel closer than ever.

As a tribute to the theatre, Curve has assembled its own von Trapp family of singing superstars in what has become a repertory company of sorts. David Seadon-Young, here the stern Captain, softens, leading to his "Edelweiss," which, as expected, broke hearts. Plus, there are lovely appearances from Curve regulars, Megan Ellis as a comedic but exasperated Sister Sophie, and Minal Patel as a selfish and secretive Max Detweiler, as well as Faye Brookes's champagne coupe swigging wicked stepmother and Joanna Riding's tender Mother Abbess.

This classic title is cared for in the right hands. The only problem to solve, so to speak, is how to top it next year!