Witches discover that their home territory is being overrun by malevolent elves and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, one of their number is going to marry the local king.

As well as witches there are wizards and other mystical creatures, puppets, Morris dancers and rude mechanicals who, like those in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, rehearse an entertainment to be performed on a wedding night. There are reunifications, strange alliances, unlikely romances and fights in which large weapons that look suspiciously like painted cardboard deal surprisingly easy deaths.

The fictional world takes a romanticised Merrie England as its keynote, but isn’t constrained by chronology, history or, seemingly, anything else. 

In short, Terry Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies (adapted for stage by Irana Brown) is loads of semi-congruent material thrown together in a way that makes its own kind of endlessly funny sense. 

A 20-strong cast on the Globe’s small stage is always a big ask, but seems to have presented no problems to director Sofie Welvaert. Every performer, including several new to the Globe stage, is enchanting, thoroughly immersed in the task and demonstrating excellent physical skills and good use of available space. I didn’t spot a weak performance anywhere. ….

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Describing Lords and Ladies – adapted from one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels –  is a challenge not for the faint of heart. Under the direction of Sofie Welvaert, Dunedin’s Globe Theatre has managed to cram within its walls a play filled with witches, elves, trolls, wizards, erotically shaped burial mounds, silly hats, magic, monkeys – sorry, librarians – and general fantasy chaos. With a cast of over twenty people and twenty-six characters, this production is nothing if not ambitious.

            The play is composed of multiple interwoven narratives, centring on a standoff between a clan of elves and a trio of witches, one of whom is engaged in a wedding to the eccentric King Verence. It also manages to feature a Midsummer Night’s Dream-eqsue play within a play, various romances, and the precarious odyssey of wizard Mustrum Ridcully as he travels towards the Kingdom of Lancre for the wedding. All converging with a rampageous slam! as the elves cross the threshold of the magic stone circle and invade reality. Lords and Ladies challenges itself with a script that demands chaos, and though chaos is undeniably present, there is simply not enough of it to carry a story that is ultimately confusing. With a run time of over two and a half hours and a plot that feels intentionally deranged, the pacing is too slow to allow the audience to become swept up in the kind of bewildered excitement that might carry them to the end.

            This drawn-out pacing is in part due to a set too complicated to keep up with the narrative. Sofie Welvaert’s set design consists of walls painted to resemble rocks, two stone pillars, which can be flipped to become castle walls, and hanging picture-book-like paintings that establish the various settings. These fixed elements alone would have been enough to mark the numerous settings that the production flips through. However, there are several movable set pieces and props, whose arrangements between scenes slow the show down significantly. Where narratives feel like they should flow into each other, there are long blackouts where the stage has to be rearranged, during which time energy and momentum are lost. The production would have benefited from a design much simpler, not least because one of the actresses seemed to hurt her hand setting up the large dining table that is carried on and off-stage ad nauseam. However, it was not entirely unsuccessful. The sense of dimension created by the painted stone walls does well to compensate for the small stage and results in cartoonishly effective moments with characters weaving in and out of them. The seemingly hand-painted walls of the set pick up light nicely and complement the play’s story-book aesthetic.

            The costume design, also by Sofie Welvaert, is undeniably the most effective visual element. Featuring colourful robes, frills, dramatic makeup, and a particularly enjoyable assortment of silly hats, she does well to adorn the actors in clothes that appropriately capture the production’s raucous sense of whimsy. I particularly enjoyed Magrat Garlick’s topsy-turvy wedding dress as it evolved into her battle armour. 

            The large cast carries off the comedy well and largely manages to maintain the sense of energy demanded by the production. Harry Almey as King Verence is a particular standout, managing to hold a level of enthusiasm remarkable considering the play’s run time. Laura Wells as Nanny Ogg delivers an extremely hilarious and polished performance. And Maegan Stedman-Ashford’s final monologue is delivered with power and poise. Though Pewsey Ogg and The Librarian managed to awaken within me a latent phobia of puppets, my terror nonetheless cannot deny that Brent Caldwell and his character voices made him the perfect man for the job. Caitlin Gordon, as Perdita, Chillum and Young Esme, gave one of the most lively and hilarious performances of the night, and I frankly wish I could have seen more of her. From the cast overall, I would have loved to see more energy. The play was at its best when the actors were at their biggest. There was a seeming disparity in stamina between Magrat Garlick, played by Brenna Fields, and her outlandish fiancé. Eva Captijn, as Queen of the Elves, carried a strength and seriousness that, instead of standing out in contrast to the rest of the outrageous characters, was let down by the ensemble and inevitably fell flat. Ultimately, I felt there were simply too many characters. In a play already made confusing by its general insanity, the number of people and plotlines was overwhelming.

            Both Jordan Wichman’s lighting design and Louisa Stabenow’s sound design (and operation) were fairly simple. They provided what was necessary and little more. 

            Overall, Lords and Ladies has a lot going for it in terms of performance; I only wish it could have leaned into its own ridiculousness more. Nonetheless, there is humour and fun to be had with this production; my congratulations to the happy bride and groom.

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