Theatre reviews: 101 Dalmatians | The Tailor of Inverness

The lead performances in 101 Dalmatians are worth barking about, writes Joyce McMillan, but the final result falls a little flat

101 Dalmatians

101 Dalmatians , King’s Theatre, Glasgow ★★★

The Tailor of Inverness, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★★

Dogged by misfortune is the phrase that comes to mind, after this week’s Glasgow run of the new musical version of 101 Dalmatians, first seen in London in 2022, and now on a UK-wide tour. The show was forced by “technical difficulties” to raise the curtain almost an hour late on Wednesday evening, and then compelled by cast illness to lose two entire performances on Thursday.

Yet all the same – and even allowing for mishaps – this heartfelt version of Dodie Smith’s 1950s story, first seen at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2022, leaves behind an impression of assembling all the ingredients for an irresistible show, but then finding that the final result falls a little flat.

Smith’s story famously tells of a couple of Dalmatians who are living happily with their kindly human owners, and rejoicing in the arrival of no fewer than 15 little Dalmatians, when they fall victim to the vile schemes of Cruella De Vil, a woman of wealth who craves the skins of Dalmatian puppies to make herself a fine fur coat, and sets out to steal the pups, and have her wicked way.

The undoubted stars of this new musical version – with script by Scottish playwrights Zinnie Harris and Johnny McKnight, and songs by Douglas Hodge – are Jimmy Grimes’s superb dog puppets, which increasingly emerge as the show’s leading characters; and the actors who manipulate and voice the dog characters (led by Linford Johnson and Emma Thornett as Pongo and Perdi) turn in superb performances, hugely appreciated by the audience.

Yet somehow, the show often seems to suffer from a lack of focus, as it leaps through the story, constantly shifting its perspective on events.

Perhaps the problem lies in the under-development of the two central human characters, the loving dog owners Tom and Danielle; or perhaps in the slightly ambiguous treatment of Cruella, who often – despite a glamorous Faye Tozer’s impressive best efforts – appears more like a flawed heroine than a properly-framed panto villain.

Given a heroic cast, magnificent puppets and a strong contemporary message about generosity, welcome and how love begets love, Bill Buckhurst’s production finally makes it through to a rousing and heartwarming conclusion; but the journey sometimes seems a shade more confusing than it ever needed to be, given the sharp and telling simplicity of Dodie Smith’s original story.

Matthew Zajac in The Tailor of Inverness

The postwar years that shaped Dodie Smith’s novel also gave us the Scottish actor and writer Matthew Zajac, born in Inverness to a Scottish mother, and a Polish father who settled in the UK after fighting in the British army towards the end of the war.

When Zajac set about researching his late father’s early life, though, he found himself on a troubling and unexpected journey into the sheer chaos and terror of the war years in central Europe, and into the complex and disturbing human stories that sometimes lie beneath our simple heroic narratives about those war years.

The result was Zajac’s intense and beautiful solo show The Tailor Of Inverness, directed by Ben Harrison of Grid Iron, first seen in 2008, and since then acclaimed across the world – from the United States and Australia to Ireland, Sweden and Ukraine – as a remarkable and heroic piece of solo performances, in which Zajac offers both a complex and loving portrait of his father, and plays himself, in his long quest for the truth.

Following a first hugely successful London run this summer, The Tailor Of Inverness finished a short Scottish tour at the Traverse Theatre this weekend; and it was a privilege, at this moment in history, to see this ever more timely story of war, peace and vulnerable humanity, played out once again in a packed and fiercely attentive Traverse Theatre, and accompanied, as ever, by the wonderful, haunting violin music of Gavin Marwick, and Jonny Hardie.