Opera Holland Park’s first mainstage premiere comes from the tried and tested pairing of composer Jonathan Dove and librettist Alasdair Middleton and is based on the Itch children’s books by Simon Mayo. It’s aimed at an all-ages audience – or one with an average age slightly younger than those filling OHP’s open-sided theatre on the coldest, wettest evening of the summer, watching with empathy as the tenor Adam Temple-Smith spent the final scene half-submerged in a well.
Temple-Smith plays Itchingham Lofte, a nerdy teenager whose hobby is collecting the elements of the periodic table, and whose acquisition of a mysterious lump of highly radioactive rock makes him a target for the stop-at-nothing executives of greedy Greencorps, leading to a high-jeopardy storyline of kidnap and escape, with a bit of rumination on ecological responsibility thrown in. Scored for 12 players and conducted by Jessica Cottis, Dove’s lean but colourful music bounces along, making something infectious out of Itch’s fascination – his hymn to the periodic table in the first scene is a highlight, glittering with celesta, glockenspiel and harp.
A good amount of the production’s impact comes from Frankie Bradshaw’s set, a Tetris-like structure of stairs and platforms resembling the “castle” of the periodic table, which lights up either as individual blocks or as a whole backdrop. Locations are spelled out with the element symbols, à la Breaking Bad. The forestage, in front of the orchestra, forms the mine floor or the Cornish beach where Itch goes to meet Cake, a slightly unlikely dealer in rocks (not the narcotic kind). He’s sung by the countertenor James Laing, who doubles as an Agent Smith-like henchman, and the speed of his costume changes from shambling surfboard-toting dude to sharp-suited corporate muscle and back again is impressive indeed.
Stephen Barlow directs, and gets enjoyable performances from his eight-strong cast, especially from Temple-Smith and from Natasha Agarwal as Itch’s sister. Nicholas Garrett revels in his role as the bitter boffin out for revenge, and Rebecca Bottone is spot on as both Itch’s stressed mother and as the brittle boss of Greencorps, pronouncing her edicts from on high in music of strastospheric pitch – shades of the Controller in Dove’s opera Flight, a hit here in 2015. Opera, chemistry and pursuit caper: its an odd mix but, if you overlook the odd plot hole and a slightly implausible rescue ending (how did he know he was there?), Itch is all good fun.
