Wind In The Willows At The Queen’s Theatre Leaves The Audience Captivated.

19th August 202619th August 2026 Francesca Lilleystone 0 Comments Hornchurch, Q Youth, Queen's Theatre, Wind In The Willows min read

By Ruth Kettle-Frisby – Guest Writer and Community Activist

Ruth is passionate about fostering positive change within the local community and regularly contributes insights and stories to The Havering Daily.

Cosgrove Hall’s wondrous 1983 stop-motion animation of Kenneth Graham’s seminal children’s novel continues to set the bar impossibly high for adaptations, and yet James Watson and Andrew Linham’s production of The Wind in the Willows at Queen’s Theatre is a triumph in modern musical storytelling for a large home-grown cast, composed of the theatre’s own youth drama programme, QYouth.

Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.

This and other classic lines from Graham’s dense prose are preserved with the sanctity they deserve, skillfully placed in the broader context of a refreshingly accessible narrative with a modern flavour that travels beyond the Wild Wood, into the Wide World for its inhabitants of all ages today.

While, inevitably, chapters have been pruned (such as The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and The Wayfarers All), and loose ends have been tied with charming plausibility (with the theme of mistaken identity coming full circle), the narrative is sound: all the way from the 1920s speakeasy-themed riverbank, to the wild wood – where Joseph Ajibade, as the faithful Mr. Badger, sings beautifully about his old friend and confident; to the open road – where Toad’s canary-coloured caravan is violently written off by the ‘poetry of motion’ encapsulated in the poop-poop excitement of the modern motor car before it spells Toad’s socially ill-fated demise.

Self-proclaimed ‘intelligent Mr. Toad’ of Toad Hall is played to unforgettably magnificent effect here by Onur Harrington, with a decent-sized dollop of toffee-nosed melodrama in the vein of Hugh Laurie as the Prince Regent in Blackadder.

For once, the multifaceted injustice dealt to this larger-than-life amphibian is grappled with head-on. Toad recognises that he can be proud and foolish, but the nature of his impulsive free-spirited affirmation of self and life is systematically denigrated by his party-pooper, fun-policing friends – and contemptuous foes alike – to mere recklessness and conceit.

Interestingly, in a Toad-centric universe, peripheral characters – from the gentle woodland animals to a motley gang of weasels in his orbit – unite in their distaste for Toad and his antics, as opposed to any shared sense of justice. They all want to either reform, punish, or exploit Toad. Even his friends despair of him, but our joint protagonist, Mole played by the brilliant Havana Harris, finds common ground.

Pastoral woodland animals are juxtaposed with heavy metal weasels, played by the youngest QYouth members and headed by punk rock Chief Weasel, Melissa Kelly. Kelly’s powerful vocal delivery and infectious stage presence wowed the audience, while her weasel minions swarmed from multiple angles of the theatre, making fantastic use of the space.

The downtrodden weasels are as misunderstood as Toad in this adaptation, which subtly traverses themes of politicised division (‘comin’ over ‘ere, stealing our nuts!’), the eternal state of freedom in flux represented by the river, and the grounding spirit of friendship. The concept of ‘home’ is separated from the material, making the production as thought-provoking as it is wildly entertaining.

While Toad almost single-handedly carries the humour, the production is ripe with Shakespearean puns (‘If music be the food of love, trot on!’…and my personal favorite, ‘Exit, pursued by a Toade’). Visual highlights include a wonderfully choreographed Battle of Toad Hall, featuring a dummy weasel being launched unceremoniously off stage by Badger; the entire Wild World being located at a single tube station – complete with delays and cancellations – and a brilliant travelling illusion. Placards (including the slogans ‘4 legs good, 2 wheels bad’ and ‘Not my Toad’), culminate along the road to one pertinent slogan, the mere mention of which moved audience members to rapturous applause (and believe me, that’s the only time the inspiration for the ‘still closed’ ‘Shallows Corner’ has that effect around here!).

Toad and Mole stole the show, closely followed by Mr. Badger and Stella Vince’s affable Ratty. The hitherto unsung hero of Toad’s disgruntled old grey horse (named Albert, here) rendered Hayden McGlinchey, with his effortlessly natural comic delivery, an unlikely star of the performance.

All in all, an outstandingly directed and musically accomplished production of a very special English novel; an enormous credit to all (over 180) involved.