The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe at The Bristol Hippodrome - September 2025
Posted on: 2025-09-16
Our rating:
Book now for a truly magical night out, for all ages from 8 to 108!
Colette Hand reviews The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at The Bristol Hippodrome until Saturday 20 September 2025, based on the novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
The four ‘Pevensie’ children (played by the equally talented actors- Kudzai Mangombe as Lucy, Bunmi Osadolor as Edmund, Joanna Adaran as Susan, and Jesse Dunbar as Peter) are evacuated to safety during the war, sent to Scotland to live in the countryside with an eccentric old professor (Kraig Thornber), a grumpy housekeeper called Mrs Macready (Katy Stephens), and a cat called ‘Schrödinger’.
Lucy enters a room with nothing in it save for a very large wardrobe. Pushing her way through the fur coats hanging up inside Lucy finds herself in a magical world where it is always winter, she has arrived in the strange land of Narnia, where animals talk and mythical creatures roam.
Before long we are all transported to the enchanted land of Narnia, guided by the noble Lion Aslan, travelling through time with children- Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter, in this much-loved classic tale where the children learn that greed, treachery, and evil can be overcome by love, kindness, courage, loyalty and sacrifice.
C.S. Lewis’s story of adventure and fantasy, full of wit and wisdom, is superbly recreated on stage with this production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Come and enjoy fantastic choreography, toe-tapping folk music, the moving and melodic voice of Mr Tumnus (played by Alfie Richards), comic performances by Mr and Mrs Beaver (played by Ed Thorpe and Anya De Villiers) and Wise Owl (also Kraig Thornber) and be slightly scared by the White Witch (also Katy Stephens) and her henchman Maugrim (Shane Antony-Whitely) … of course we mustn't forget credit must also be given to the talented puppeteers (Andrew Davison, Rhodri Watkins and Molly Francis) who brought to life the magnificent ‘Aslan’ and his little brother ‘Schrodinger’, and the man who gave voice to Aslan, Stanton Wright.
In fact, thank you to everyone involved in the making of this show, the creative team, stage management, cast and crew.
I took my eight year old grandson with me to see this performance. Our 30 minute journey to the Hippodrome was a quiet affair, very little conversation was to be had, it was like pulling teeth trying to get more than a couple of words out of him.
I was unsure as to whether my grandson would enjoy the show, whether he could relate to it (being of a different time, a distant past), or even understand it (he knows very little about the war and evacuation). He hadn't read the book or even seen the film. My grandson, like a lot of children his age, has grown up watching highly stimulating blockbuster films on screen, full of colour, superheroes, animated characters, and special effects. He enjoys playing games on his Kindle or PlayStation. He is also autistic with special educational needs and often has difficulty in understanding people and the world around him. I needn't have worried, he was soon transfixed and engrossed in the performance taking in as much as he could comprehend. Afterwards he said that he really, really enjoyed his night out. I asked him who his favourite characters were, he liked the wolf and the white witch. When asked which one of the children he would like to be most like, he chose Susan because she was ‘kind and sensible’. My grandson is also of mixed heritage so it was great for him to see people just like him, so very important for his self esteem. My grandson talked non-stop all the way home…and for that I thank you all, for entertaining us, educating us, helping us to create precious memories, and bonds, and helping us to make sense of the world around us.
The show which is directed by Michael Fentiman is sure to become a favourite with young and old alike, one to keep on going back to see, truly a timeless classic
Book now for a truly magical night out, for all ages from 8 to 108! Click for Bristol Hippodrome tickets.
Article by:
Colette Hand (BA Hons in Art & Education Studies). Grandmother to four grandchildren aged 2 to 21, and part-time volunteer at a museum in Bath, writing for 365Bristol mainly on theatre and family activities when not raising money wild swimming around the country!
