Review: THE LITTLE PRINCE, London Coliseum
Photo credit: Broadway Entertainment Group
There have been many different stage adaptations of The Little Prince, often quite small-scale and aimed at children. The touring version from Dubai-based Broadway Entertainment Group at the London Coliseum this week, as part of its world tour, is very different. With a cast of 14 dancers, gymnasts and aerialists, the familiar story is retold mostly through movement and dance to Terry Truck’s music, but also in French (with surtitles) by an onstage narrator.
The performers are listed in the programme and souvenir brochure but with no biographical information; most seem to come from a contemporary dance background and have perhaps then added aerial work or other New Circus skills to their range of onstage skills. They work hard to fill the large Coliseum stage but might have been seen to better advantage in a smaller theatre. There is no set apart from a large video screen on which projections (Marie Jumelin) portray the different planets visited by the Prince.
Most of the key moments from the book are portrayed, from the arrival by (very small) parachute of the Aviator to the various animals and people met during the journey. These are all well-played by the cast of dancers, many of whom have been with the production since it opened in 2019.
Aurelian Bednarek’s Aviator gives a strong physical performance and is seen to his best advantage when dancing with Dylan Barone’s Little Prince. As the Prince, Barone is always watchable and has a wide skill set. He is comfortable with aerial work on straps as well as dance, but it is a curiously adult portrayal of this embodiment of childhood.
It would, of course, have been very difficult to cast a child in the role for a long tour, but it is surprising that other solutions such as a puppet were not adopted, or casting someone physically smaller than the other dancers: we are never really reminded of that small child on a small planet that is so familiar from the book. Children also spot confusions very quickly; as one small boy pointed out, the announcement before the show about switching off phones said they haven’t been invented in the Little Prince’s world, but then they were seen on stage more than once.
Among the rest of the cast, Marcin Janiak makes much of the role of the Lamplighter, with his lamp forming the basis of a Chinese pole act making good use of the different possibilities of the prop. Killian Mermet is a lively Fox, though slightly hampered by an unfortunate and un-foxlike wig. Strangely, the Fox has a tail but no ears or other animal characteristics, and Peggy Houset’s costumes do vary from the effective, for example for Marie Menuge’s Rose, to the less convincing.
Choreographer and Director Anne Tournié keeps the story developing and uses movement well to sketch in each character as they appear, mostly successfully, although occasionally the moves seem overly repetitive.
Her Associate Director and Librettist/Adaptor is Chris Mouron, who also appears as the Narrator. This is a puzzling decision as it is the Aviator who narrates the book, and to suddenly insert a new character in tail coat with green hair does tend to confuse the story. In particular (at least in the surtitled English translation), she uses direct rather than reported speech while the character indicated stays mute, meaning that it is not always clear who is supposed to be speaking.
A show for The Little Prince completists perhaps, very much aimed at those adults with nostalgic memories of this most popular of books, but danced with warmth and affection and greeted with enthusiasm by many from London’s French community who were in the first night audience and who were ready to, as the book says, “see clearly only with the heart.”
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Chris Abbott
The Little Prince plays at London Coliseum until 16 March, with further info here.
