As fluffy and cute as a whole litter of puppies, 101 Dalmatians the Musical, currently 12 stops into a 22 venue tour, is set to blow the fuse of the Adorable-o-meter at the Liverpool Empire this week.
Dodie Smith’s heart-warming story has been beguiling children and melting the hearts of quite a few parents for over 6 decades, with a lot of help from Disney Studios. Zinnie Harris’s stage adaptation with book by Johnny McKnight and music and lyrics by Douglas Hodge first appeared to a muted reception at Regents’ Park open air theatre in 2022, but this touring show is a completely new production which ups its game significantly, with slicker production values, new sets, new costumes, new puppets and new orchestrations, and is directed with gusto by Bill Buckhurst.
The story steers a course somewhere between that of the animated film and the book that it was made from, taking a simplified plotline but restoring the presence of a helpful cat, which offers an opening for one of the show’s numerous homespun homilies.
Pongo, an abandoned Dalmatian, is rescued from the streets and re-homed by a helper at an animal rescue centre. When Pongo’s new owner Danielle meets fashion designer Tom in the park with his dog Perdi, cupid’s arrow makes a double hit, and soon the four have formed a household. When Perdi and Pongo find themselves expecting the patter of a lot of tiny feet, in walks Danielle’s old friend Cruella DeVil, whose obsession with fur coats gives her a DeVil-ish idea for the expected litter. The rest of the story follows the abduction of 15 puppies and their parents’ desperate quest to rescue them, which leads to the eventual acquisition of rather a lot more dogs than Danielle and Tom ever expected to share a house with.
The dogs and other animals are portrayed by numerous different types of puppetry, from simple glove puppets for the smaller creatures to much more complex creations, all from the imagination of puppet designer and director Jack Hopkins. The majority of the key puppets each have a single operator, who also provides the animal’s voice, and these are led by Linford Jonson and Emma Thornett as Pongo and Perdi, both of whom give splendid characterisations as well as impressive vocals in the musical numbers, The large ensemble of puppeteers means that the stage gets very busy at times, but the quality of the puppetry is such that you are still able to mentally airbrush out the human form behind each animal.
Humans who you are supposed to notice are, of course, Jessie Elland and Samuel Thomas, who give delightful performances as Danielle and Tom, while Charles Brunton and Danny Hendrix are a fun double-act as the henchmen Casper and Jasper.
Whilst the puppets definitely steal the show, the human who makes the biggest impact has to be Kym Marsh as Cruella, giving her character a full-on pantomime villain treatment that would not be out of place in the likes of Sleeping Beauty. Marsh’s biography doesn’t list any such roles in her repertoire, but after seeing this turn it surely can’t be long before she is in high demand to be booed at during the festive season.
The songs, whilst not especially memorable, are tuneful and engaging and given fine delivery by the excellent cast.
This is a great night out for the family, particularly for younger children, although there are a couple of brief scenes, including one bar-room sequence, that are a little close to the knuckle dialogue-wise. The inevitable but brief appearance of a live Dalmatian puppy in the closing scenes is a nice bonus, which adds a final touch of icing to an already very sweet cake.
101 Dalmations plays Liverpool Empire until 28th September, with evening performances starting at a bedtime-friendly 7:00pm. It then continues touring the UK and Ireland with dates booking through to January, although Kym Marsh will be replaced by Faye Tozer and Kerry Ellis in performances after 9th November.
Star rating: 4 stars
The cast of 101 Dalmatians - picture by Johan Persson
This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool
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