Wednesday 16th until Sunday 20th June 2010 @ Hippodrome, Bristol

Bilbo Baggins is a quiet and contented hobbit. He lives a pleasant, calm life in his hobbit hole in the Shire but his life is turned upside-down when he is chosen by Gandalf the Sorcerer to join Thorin Oakenshield, the exiled King of the Dwarves, on his quest to reclaim their kingdom and treasure. It is the story of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the best selling fantasy novel ever written. It’s a boisterous, addictive and gargantuan adventure that spans mountains, lakes, forests and skies, where you encounter wizards, wolves, goblins, trolls, bears, elves, giant eagles, giant spiders, dragons, dwarfs and treasure and the whole kit and caboodle has been brought to life in Bristol on the broad and glamorous stage of the Hippodrome.

Trying to stage such a boundless quest is an incredible challenge but the company manage it amicably, cleverly using two large revolving pieces of scenery in an abundance of combinations to recreate houses, caves, trees, rocks, towns and dungeons. The large cast too have to constantly change characters and costumes to recreate all the wild men and monsters we meet on the journey. Such constant changing could have got very confusing and annoying but the sturdy presence of Christopher Llewellyn as Bilbo Baggins, the flustered but good hearted hobbit, kept the audience hooked all the way. Bilbo shares our thoughts and fears throughout the adventure with a charming innocence but we always suspected the hobbit had more to him than even he knew and by the final scene, he excels himself and becomes the real, honourable hero.

The greatest thing about this production is how faithful they have remained to the original book. Almost every scene, encounter and character has been brought to life here (some more successfully than others) as they give it a real go. This is also one of the downsides to the production; the desire to include absolutely everything from the book means there is a hell of a lot to get through and scenes and dialogue is often rattled through at a dizzying pace with the audience struggling to keep up. When a scene is allowed to take its time though the quality of the story is able to rally shine through; most notably in the excellent encounter with Gollum in the deep caverns of the mountain as the creature and Bilbo try and outwit each other.

An interesting production of a classic adventure that any fan of Tolkien can’t fail to enjoy.

www.thehobbittour.co.uk