This puppyish, puppet-led musical based on Dodie Smith’s spotty dog story wins you over with sheer dazzle and bonkers invention. The music comes a poor second to the witty lyrics in Douglas Hodge’s adaptation, but the animation of the dogs by War Horse alumnus Toby Olié is uncanny. And Kate Fleetwood is scene-stealingly, scenery-chewingly hilarious as Cruella de Vil, an online influencer who’s taken Bimini Bon Boulash as her style inspiration.
Hodge and writer Johnny McKnight – working from an earlier stage adaptation by Zinnie Harris - update the story to contemporary London with mixed narrative results but to great comic effect. Those expecting a retread of the beloved 1961 Disney animation will be rudely jarred: there’s lots of bottom sniffing and fart gags here, plus an attempt to equate Cruella’s viciousness with the anti-immigration rhetoric of right-wing trolls.
