Written for Time Out
Staging Miguel de Cervantes's epic novel takes some serious cojones, but the Warehouse Theatre's in-house company get away with it through sheer charm. With more cod Spanish than a fish-and-chip shop on the Costa del Sol, the self-appointed saviour of La Mancha gets a Horrible Histories-style makeover.
There's goofy gusto and knob gags aplenty as Don Quixote's deluded chivalry goes into overdrive and, with his squire Sancho Panza in tow, he battles windmills and goats, believing them to be giants and demons.
While Vince Foxall's script turns somersaults - at times, it's so stuffed with wordplay that the sense falls out - the fun is largely in the playing. Philip Benjamin finds a sweet bewildered benignity as the titular knight-lite and Mark Sangster makes a droll, energetic sidekick as Panza.
What's missing, however, are the frazzled hysterics of a Ken Campbell Roadshow. To counteract the formulaic narrative, Ted Craig's production needs a bit more bonkers invention to keep things fresh. After two-and-a-half hours without it, half-baked, homespun charm runs thin.
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