UK Theatre Network

Horrible Histories (The King's Theatre, Glasgow, until Saturday)

Head on down to the King’s for a helping of Terry Deary’s “history with the horrible bits left in”. Following the huge international success of historian and author Deary’s educational, entertaining and often irreverent children’s book series -and its various merchandising offshoots and subseries - the much loved Horrible Histories has genre hopped, and is currently running as both a touring stage production and a CBBC miniseries.

Adapted for stage by Phil Clark and brought to life by Birmingham Stage Company, the show is a family-friendly mix of education, slapstick humour and, perhaps the most exciting feature for technophiles such as myself, 3D animation (congenially referred to as “Bogglevision” within the show itself and the accompanying programme). As with the book series, the show is a look at the more gruesome and often comical side of history, and it certainly adopts Deary’s penchant for gore and grisliness, with sound effects used throughout for breaking bones, squelching mud, exploding insects and machinegun fire. As an avid childhood Horrible Histories reader myself, I couldn’t help feeling a little let down by the lack of Deary’s usual sarcastic and irreverent humour, as most of the lines which evidently sought laughter would not have seemed out of place being read out over Christmas dinner.

The show is split up into two different performances, each dedicated to a different historical period (much like the books), the periods featured in this case being the “Frightful First World War” and the “Woeful Second World War” (I can’t help thinking that Deary missed a trick with the latter by choosing “woeful” as his adjective, rather than the more alliterative “sorrowful”, but I’m not a best-selling children’s author and world-renowned historian, so who am I to criticise). Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to see the second instalment of the show, and so I can only go on the events of the former.

The action of the ‘play’ followed the protagonist, Anthony, a present day schoolboy (played by Julius Metson Scott, a distinctly adult actor) who had accidentally activated a time machine within his computer, sending him back to the twentieth century to witness the events of the Great War. A mixture of live actors and animation on a projector screen behind them, in addition to the pantomime-esque audience participation, all made this performance a very entertaining one for the large proportion of children in the audience, and a satirical undercurrent kept the interest of most (and I say most as, on my way out from the theatre, I happened to overhear a middle aged couple, apparently accompanying their young grandson, referring to the entire show as ‘utter nonsense’) of the pubescent to adult patrons.

The four-strong cast put in competent performances, and much praise must go to the multi-accented Laura Dalgleish, for her phenomenal stage presence, in a number of guises, hers being the most genuine and entertaining of the characters. Matthew Schmolle was also praiseworthy, as Private Paul Turner, a soldier and journalist, and Ciaran McConville (who, it must be said, gave Bruno Ganz – the phenomenal lead in the recent film of Hitler’s demise – a run for his money in depicting a Hitler-like Germany personification) gave a very vibrant and comical performance.

The only criticisms I could really make of Horrible Histories were the contrived reminders, at regular intervals, of how long left the show had, thinly veiled as the main character’s computer’s attempts to try and transport him back to the current day. A further failing was the surprising disappointment of the 3D aspect of the show, which, whether through the quality of the screen, or that of the 3D glasses, or simply because of the extent of the budget, was blurry and certainly not as realistic as I have come to expect of 3D. The thunderous screaming of the children in the audiences indicated their apparent ignorance of this blatant lack of 3D quality however, so perhaps this is a sign of my age rather than a reflection of the show itself. I’ll leave it up to you...

Listings Info:

Horrible Histories
Frightful First World War
Tues 7pm, Wed, Fri, and Sat 10.30am, Thu 1.30