And while it does broach serious themes, if anything the issue is how innocuous and insubstantial the 90-minute affair – which mystifyingly won an Olivier award in 1995 – feels today.ĭisney’s live-action Little Mermaid is released next week but Disneyfication in its blandest sense afflicts Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s 1990 treatment of Rosa Guy’s 1985 novel My Love, My Love. The show is a Caribbean rejig of The Little Mermaid, set in Haiti, and told as a tale within a tale. But looking at the good seat availability for the rest of the run, is it possible people are concluding it’s the antithesis of a fun night out? In his time, artistic director Timothy Sheader has rightly made attendance here less of a cosy al fresco affair.
This, despite the fact that the production is open to everyone aged 10 and over.
You’re greeted with a bit of blurb as to what Once on this Island entails (“a musical story of love, grief, faith and hope”) plus a doomy advisory that it contains “scenes which some may find upsetting involving racism and racial trauma, colourism, death by suicide and sexual abuse”. Is anyone counting the cost of content warnings? There’s an obvious rationale for flagging upsetting material but just consider how off-putting the online description of the big opening show of the summer season at Regent’s Park might be for families.
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