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Show: Demon Dentist
Society: New Victoria Theatre (professional productions)
Venue: New Victoria Theatre. The Ambassadors, The Peacocks Centre, Woking GU21 6GQ
Credits: By David Walliams. Adapted by Neal Foster. Produced by Birmingham Stage Company
Type: Sardines
Author: Paul Johnson
Performance Date: 08/02/2023
Demon Dentist
Paul Johnson | 11 Feb 2023 02:23am
Image: Demon Dentist Live On Stage. Photo: Mark Douet
If you’re a big fan of David Walliams it won’t take you too long to work out that Demon Dentist is a children’s book. So Neal Foster’s faithful adaptation (the fourth of Birmingham Stage Company’s offerings from the House of Walliams) for the stage is, not surprisingly, very cartoonesque, starts at 7pm (unlike the usual 7.30pm) and has a programme bursting with games and puzzles… oh and featured a press night interval where a bundle of tumbleweed wouldn’t have seemed out of place if it had blown across Woking’s bar area. That where the show is this week; at ATG’s New Victoria Theatre where it is kicking off the post-Chistmas leg of its national tour. It spent december in London playing at the Bloomsbury Theatre.
Just after panto season, which marked many kids’ first ever theatre outing – ever, the timing really couldn’t have been better. Apparently there were many schools that came to the afternoon’s matinee performance – no doubt breking up for half term in style – even if Britain’s Got Talent’s campest judge wasn’t there. I was also ten minutes late again. The 7pm start complately caught me out; I did wonder why it was so quiet outside the auditorium at 7.10pm.
It didn’t seem to matter as I caught up quickly. Miss ‘Root’ is the town’s new dentist replacing the doddery old terror of Alfie, who never goes and, as a result, has a mouth full of rotten teeth. Alfie soon discovers that the new dentist isn’t all she seems after he spills some of the free toothpaste she gave out at a school talk she has just given. The toothpaste acts like acid and burns the ground. The other school children find that when they go to bed and put their teeth under their respective pillow only to wake up a scream at what has been left behind; a dead slug, a live spider or hundreds of earwigs creeping and crawling beneath their pillow. Miss Root is to blame. That’s as much of the plot that you’re getting for fear of giving too much away. So, if you don’t know what happens then you’ll have to guess.
The nine-strong cast work well together, largely as an ensemble. Miss Root (Emily Harrigan) is almost too attractive to play such an evil character and best friends Alfie (Sam Varley) and Gabz (Georgia grant-Anderson) make a great leading duo. However, Alfie’s dad (James Mitchell) is wheelchair-bound, hence the visits of social worker, Winnie (Misha Malcolm). Raj (Zain Abrahams) is up to his usual tricks and Foster has thankfully left them in. In fact it is Raj and Winnie who end at the climax of the plot lending a helping hand – or two.
BSC has produced four of the author’s work now and Sardines is featuring a special interview with Neal Foster inside the next issue which will be out soon. Gangsta Granny, Billionaire Boy and Awful Auntie now has the nighmarish toothfairy to make up its quartet. With the latter book pretty scary (it had my son in tears) this last one to take to the stage is just pure evil. Roald Dahl didn’t attempt to hide any of the scary stuff and neither does Mr W. So, you won’t be suprised to hear that Roald Dahl is actually David Walliams’ favourite author.
We’ll let the RSC and Chickenshed produce some of Walliams’ other stories because I think BSC has stumbled upon a theme here. Not that Walliams hasn’t got himself into hot water with today’s social media troublemakers. His accent-rich Raj (who pops up in many of Walliams’ books) and Winnie, who both feature in Demon Dentist, have failed to make the writer any new friends – instead there appears to be a growing queue of those who, it seems, live just to take a swipe at the most successful of us in the name of stereoyping an entire race. Never mind the fact that a lot of Indians do indeed run corner shops and the strong West Indies h-accent is tricky to understand. That said, even Foster’s adaptation and direction has made both characters from up north – with Raj retaining his roots the strongest. Winnie’s deep and loud laugh is sadly all that remains of the book’s beloved character.