The Russian writer Yevgeny Schwartz is not well known in the UK, but he was a prolific playwright and a brave man. You would have to be very courageous indeed to have written this thinly disguised 1943 attack on Stalin and totalitarianism that wraps its subversive message up in a feather-light fairytale.
The inhabitants of a small town are in thrall to a bloodthirsty, fire-breathing dragon who terrorises them and demands that they make regular sacrifices to him of the town’s young women. Everyone thinks that’s how it has always been and that’s how it will always be: even Elsa, who is next in line to be eaten. The people believe that they need a strong claw to guide them. After all, the dragon you know, however violent and horrible, is better than the dragon you don’t. Besides, he keeps them safe from the Jews and Gypsies, and everyone knows they are far more terrifying than dragons. But when an underdressed superhero, Lancelot, turns up in the town determined to slay the dragon, it looks as if the people will soon be liberated. Or will they?
Daniel Goldman’s high-spirited production for Tangram theatre company is uneven and lacks pace, but it has a certain oddball charm and makes the most of meagre resources to tell a tale whose application to our own times – and the war on terror – is neatly made without too much fuss. Played with the houselights up, this show turns its rough-and-ready execution into a virtue and has some good ideas, in particular the way Justin Butcher’s dragon uses a microphone to terrorise the population.
Some of the other performances are much in need of more attack, or simply more warmth and engagement with the audience. But Rob Witcomb brings charm to the cat who acts as narrator, and Hannah Boyde seizes the comic opportunities as the town’s opportunistic mayor.
• Until 10 January. Box office: 020-7407 0234. Venue: Southwark Playhouse, London.
