Hex
National Theatre | ★★★★✩

Last year the National’s big seasonal show — a reboot of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale written by Tanya Ronda — was hexed by Covid. Omicron allowed a few tantalising performances before ripping the production from the stage before press night.

The year-long wait is rewarded by an eye-popping opening scene. Three ethereal fairies descend from the sky over a forest of leafless trees.

Pulsating like jellyfish, they disdainfully declare that they are “above it all” while below them base earthlings, both animal and human, go about their grubby little lives enslaved by their even baser instincts.

However, one of their peers is not so snobbish. The (not so) imaginatively named Fairy (Lisa Lambe) is wingless, looks like an exploded powder puff and lives on the grubby forest floor with the rest of us, granting wishes here, using her powers for good there, until one day a sleep-deprived Queen imprisons her for refusing to make the royal’s newborn baby Rose take a nap.

Lisa Lambe (Fairy) in Hex at the National Theatre. Image credits- Johan Persson 33081

Lisa Lambe (Fairy) (Johan Persson)

This prompts Fairy to use her powers in anger. She places a hex on the baby which ensures that if Rose is pricked by a thorn before she is 16 she will sleep until kissed by a prince. This, we learn, is a big no no.
A fairy who abuses her powers loses her powers.

In Rufus Norris’s production all this happens against the musical backdrop of Jim Fortune’s folk and even ska-influenced score, and with a visual style as inventive as the illustrations in Alice in Wonderland.

Yet, despite some wonderful set pieces including a brilliant dance fight with a troupe of personified thorns, the impression here is of a slightly desperate attempt to be original.

The story only gets going in earnest when Rose (Rosie Graham) is finally woken nearly a century later by Prince Bert (Michael Elcock), who is human on his father’s side but troll on the side of his mother (Victoria Hamilton-Barritt).

This complicates matters because trolls like to eat humans, especially babies, including Bert and Rosie’s. It is here that the show’s theme — how we are all in a constant fight to suppress our primitive instincts — really takes hold.

Things turn very dark, but actually without the conviction of macabre shows that have gone before such as Shockheaded Peter, Sweeney Todd or even the panto at Hammersmith Lyric a few years ago which brilliantly dwelt on the excruciating toe cutting needed to make Cinderella’s slipper fit an ugly sister’s foot.

Here the troll is a superbly conflicted beast excellently played by Hamilton-Barritt. She hates the idea of eating her grandchildren but, like an alcoholic, cannot resist temptation.

The decision to save us from believing she has, even for a little while, feels like one made out of an over-developed concern for audience sensitivities rather than a commitment to compelling storytelling.

We leave persuaded — rather than convinced — that it was all worth the wait.