The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Little Angel Theatre, London

Writer: Laura Bradford

Director: Oliver Hymans

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is part of this year’s Children’s Puppet Festival, a homegrown product of the Little Angel Theatre’s Workshops. The six puppeteers come newly trained from the Workshop’s scheme, which aims to develop the endangered craft of marionette (ie string-operated) puppetry. The story comes from a little poem by Goethe, and it’s a simple one. A Sorcerer disappears, leaving his young apprentice alone to carry water with a pair of buckets and a broomstick. The apprentice reckons he’s seen enough of his master’s magical powers, and trying to summon them, gets the broom to carry the water for him. Famously, things get out of hand.

This production has a neat frame story. The show opens with the six puppeteers sneaking into the back of the auditorium in darkness, shining little torches and staring at what they’re seeing. There is some sort of blocked-up entrance on the stage with a notice to keep out. When they manage to dismantle it, a theatre curtain is revealed. The puppeteers disappear backstage, and the curtain is lifted just enough to reveal a rectangle of light and a gangly puppet – the blue-haired apprentice. ‘Is it real?’ a child in the audience asks aloud in wonderment.

The puppet interacts with his broom, gradually getting it to fly around. The story of this 60-minute show is extended with various other objects being brought to life. Most delightful is a sort of Anglepoise lamp which starts bouncing cheerfully around the stage. The children in the audience seem most enchanted by the stickman, however, and are clearly awed when it magically bifurcates, and then reassembles itself. Thick books flutter and fly, flags dance. The backdrop slides to reveal another backdrop – a nice detail by scenic artist Valerya Veronkina.

No words are spoken, but the music by composer and sound designer Ian Oakley is an evocative mixture of jazz- and electronic-inspired sounds.

Director Oliver Hymans ensures that the sequences flow smoothly, but it’s hard to get much sense of a story. Laura Bradford’s script hasn’t introduced us to the Sorcerer, and the sense of the Apprentice’s responsibility for harnessing supernatural powers remains opaque, even for adult viewers. At the end there is some sort of breaking of the fourth/puppet wall when human hands point down from on high, signalling something to the Apprentice. Have we been watching a meta-story about puppeteers discovering an old puppet theatre?

It’s all visually appealing but needs a stronger storyline.

Runs until 30 August 2026