In the miniature Garden Theatre at The Eagle comes a huge show of vitality, song and dance. Pippin‘s score was written by Stephen Schwartz of Wicked fame. Schwartz gave his permission for this boutique musical version of Pippin at Vauxhall with a talented ensemble cast of just six.  Entering the theatre with the audience sitting on both sides of the set is like walking into a fairy tale setting, plants, flowers and fairy lights, and a cast dressed as hippies from the 1970s.

Pippin (Ryan Anderson) is the wide eyed ingenue, the elder son of the king of Christendom, Charlemagne (Dan Krikler). While it is his birth right to inherit his father’s Frankish kingdom, the young prince Pippin expresses his need to discover his own space,

“I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free / Got to find my corner of the sky”. Pippin wants to achieve something truly extraordinary. 

Pippin’s first exploit is into the theatre of war. Whereas Pippin’s younger half brother Lewis (Harry Francis) is all laddish conceit and physicality, Pippin is into the world of books. The arch enemy are the Visigoths and somehow this cast of six recreate a battle. “Glory” is the exciting music for the war briefing song with its compulsive, jazzy beat. 

The Leading Player (Tsemaye Bob-Egbe) gives this song of “Battles, Barbarous, and Bloody” the full force of her magnificent voice. But war doesn’t row Pippin’s boat and in “Simple Joys” we feel his striving for the unobtainable, “Well I’ll sing you the story of a sorrowful lad / He had everything he wanted, didn’t want what he had.” 

It is his wise old grandmother, Bertha (Strictly Come Dancing Winner from 2016, Joanne Clifton) who with a hat, a shawl and a crotchety walk conveys old age and gives Pippin some amusing and comic, scene stealing perspective on what opportunities are there for young princes. Pippin takes her advice to live a little but his sexual dalliances don’t ultimately satisfy.