A review by Riley Barn

A family comedy and lesson-learning story about friendship and responsibility, The Wind In The Willows performed by the Youth Theatre is a lovely sight to behold! 

Full of laughs for everyone and some interesting plays on the original story led to a very entertaining event. I am amazed by the way they twisted the classic Wind In The Willows and made some references to real world money schemes used in very clever ways. 

There are breaks every so often where the cast aside from the main characters get their time to shine with some of my favourite moments emulating from some small cutoff scenes. The opportunity for younger children to have themselves heard is just phenomenal and makes a sense of community within the cast.

This production focused on developing the story through communication of characters and wisely placed scene cuts which makes everything seem faster. While in the grand scheme of things it’s quite a long show, I must say the show always seemed interesting and there was never a time I was disinterested or bored. 

It was also very clever with costumes. You can spend a bunch of money on animal costumes. They instead went for a more simple design and made the characters have a slightly more human look but their costumes still reflected their animal. For example, Mole was wearing a grey and blue attire which reflected a mole’s natural colour but they also made her seem very shy but friendly which was a nice addition. Badger also kept to a black and white colour scheme which not only made her look like a badger but also like an authority figure which she emulates throughout the show. 

Overall, I think it was well made and a nice spin on the classic tale The Wind In The Willows. A good show for all the family!

Riley Barn became a reviewer for the Torch Theatre in December 2022, age 12. You can read more of his reviews on torchtheatre.co.uk.