Silas Marner is not the most obvious subject for a musical. How do you make a song and dance out of the unlikely tale of a misanthropic miser who suddenly discovers the joys of single parenthood? Tim Baker's adaptation has a pleasingly pre-industrial feel, however, with tunes lifted directly from the hit parade of the 1830s and hand-operated stage technology.
Baker's production succeeds handsomely as a superb evening of traditional music; that it comes with the plot of a classic novel seems an added bonus. Composer Jon Nicholls has spliced together an evocative sequence of authentic folk themes, performed by the actors on an array of esoteric instruments. Aficionados of the hammered dulcimer should beat a path to Wales immediately.
The music invests the narrative with a festive, around-the-maypole feel, with the simple ingenuity of Mark Bailey's revolving set spinning the action along nicely. Bailey poises the village on a giant millstone, which everyone pitches in to rotate by hand. It provides a great metaphor for physical labour as well as pulling off a great piece of musical staging that will never be held to ransom by a computer glitch. The performances are delivered with a hearty, loam-footed directness, and although the sound of Welsh actors dealing in Midland accents is at times a curious hybrid, everyone meets the demands of the brisk, narrative-heavy scenes.
Silas Marner is perhaps George Eliot's least pessimistic work, and there is a danger that its simple, redemptive message will seem heartwarmingly affirming but dramatically null. As Silas, however, Johnson Willis creates a cowed, weaselly character, portraying the local weirdo with feral, frightening intensity. That he is the last potential father an adoption agency would want on their books makes his sudden overflow of compassion for the foundling, Eppie, all the more miraculous. Maybe more embittered, ageing bachelors should be persuaded to adopt. Or on second thoughts, maybe not.
· Until October 12. Box office: 01352 755114.
